


The One That Got Away

by w0rdinista (Niamh_St_George)



Series: Thena Shepard [5]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 05:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 61,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh_St_George/pseuds/w0rdinista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the prison-ship Purgatory fell, more than just Jack got out in the chaos.  And now someone is stalking and killing the Citadel’s war refugees — but when the killer suddenly changes his MO, Shepard has little choice but to get involved; can she catch someone who’s already slipped through the cracks once — more importantly, can she do it before he hurts anyone else?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Created for the 2012 Mass Effect Big Bang  
> Illustrations by the lovely Plutokitty  
> Bottomless thanks to tarysande and servantofclio for being wonderful cheerleaders, beta readers, fact-and-canon checkers, and for yelling at me when I started to apologize about the length of the fic. :) Extra thanks to Plutokitty for the illustrations, and for being wonderful.

 

Art by [Plutokitty](http://plutokitty.deviantart.com/)

 

* * *

 

Hell of a day.

Hell of a week, really.

Bailey leaned back in his chair, pressing palms against his burning eyes.  It’d been a damned mistake accepting this promotion, and he’d known it was a mistake even at the time, but he also knew Donnel Udina was a tenacious son of a bitch who took no for an answer just about as well as his ex-wife ever had.  So he went along with it, trying to tell himself it wouldn’t be that different, that he could deal with Udina and still do the job he wanted to do. The important thing was shutting the damned windbag up.

Now Udina was dead and he was still stuck in a position he hated.  Adding insult to injury, he had to process all the paperwork surrounding Udina’s death.  And all the crap that led up to it.  So on top of C-Sec being stretched out too damned thin — thanks to those Cerberus bastards and the chief bastard himself, Udina — there was an internal affairs investigation going on, and while Bailey was more than happy to let internal affairs do whatever the hell they wanted to do with whatever dirt they found on Udina, they were still expecting him to take a hand in the investigation.  Far as Bailey was concerned, the case was as cut and dried as they came.  The councilor was a traitorous bastard and sold them all out, then got his lungs ventilated for his trouble.  Yeah, he knew there were bigger things in a bigger picture — greater implications and all that — but damn it, he was the commander here.  What the hell good was that if he didn’t even get a say as to what cases he got to work on?

He missed the old days.  He missed getting his hands dirty.  He missed being a _cop._   Whatever it was he was doing here in an office with a desk and a big flashy sign with his name on the door, it wasn’t anywhere near being a cop.

The door opened and he dropped his hands, taking in a deep breath — probably another internal affairs stuffed shirt with another datafile of Udina’s illicit transactions — but stopped when he saw one of his own men standing in the doorway.  Tallix Arturicus.  A good cop.

It wasn’t usually a good sign when one of the better cops showed up on his doorstep looking this… troubled.  Hell, any day a turian looked troubled generally turned out to be a bad one, in his experience.

“Sir,” the officer began.  “There’s been another.”

Bailey’s stomach went cold, icing over with the lead weight that settled down at the pit of it.  _Keep your head, man.  Could be he means about a million different things, the way the station’s gone to hell._   “Gonna need a little more than that, son.”

“Another victim, sir.”

The weight in the officer’s tone told him everything he needed to know, and some of what he didn’t want to know.

“Shit.”

“…And there’s been a change, sir.  In his MO.  Something you should see.”

He leaned back in his chair, wincing a little as his still-healing wound bitched at the movement.  “I’m not gonna like this, am I?”

“No, sir.  Definitely not.”

 

###

 

Located several decks below C-Sec, the Citadel’s morgue was about the size of a shipping warehouse.  Seemed big, too, until you thought about how damned many millions of bodies lived on the station to begin with.  With this last round of rebuilding, given how many remains they were recovering, the morgue got expanded and updated — the place was built like a goddamn bunker.  Climate-controlled, with a couple thousand pods designed to hold and preserve the remains of any species for an indefinite amount of time.  Some species were downright particular about their funeral rituals — the hanar came to mind — and it was sometimes necessary to hold on to remains until such time as the deceased’s planet’s third moon waxed full, just as a for instance.

The morgue was also one of the few places on the Citadel that didn’t get blown to hell with Udina’s coup.  Good thing, too, since it was a little fuller now than it was before.  C-Sec didn’t need more pods yet, but given the way things were going… well, given the way things were going on in the galaxy, having a place for people to store their dead might wind up becoming a moot point.  

Not that Bailey was in a hurry to share _that_ particular opinion with anybody.  

The viewing bay was a stark room, all white tile and steel tables, with a wide window overlooking the containment area.  For the most part, “containment area” amounted to a whole lot of compartments set to accommodate all known races.  The tech was cutting edge, Bailey knew that much — had to be — but to his eye, the whole damn morgue looked like a bunch of skycar garages stacked hundreds high and thousands wide.

Agent Arturicus led Bailey to the main computer terminal, and punched in his access code.  Beyond the thick safety glass (not even _glass,_ really — some kind of polymer, but it looked enough like glass to Bailey) a metal panel slid open, revealing eight pods.  Four of them were full, and one of them — the newest — was in the process of being transported from refrigeration to the viewing bay.  “I’ve got the newest with the others,” he said.  

“You’re sure it’s our guy?”

The agent gave a grim nod.  “I am, sir.”

“Has the ME been by yet?”

“Not yet,” Arturicus said, “but… well.  You’ll see.”  He punched a series of keys, and one of the pods slid out on a panel.  Several more keystrokes and the pod let out a long hiss as the lid slid open.  Bailey looked down into the chamber and felt his stomach drop.

“…Shit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Guess it was too much to hope for this asshole got shot to hell in the coup, huh?”

“My thoughts exactly, sir.”

The woman in the pod was young; her biotag had been fried, and even after some coaxing didn’t spit anything back other than corrupted and garbled nonsense.  Without a ‘tag, the chances for getting a positive ID were slim to none, especially since her head had been freshly shaved, and someone had gone and _drawn_ all over her body.  Odds were good she didn’t look like that before she died.

“What makes you so sure it’s the same—” 

Arturicus pressed another button and the rollers inside the pod began whirring, gently turning the body over.  Their guy had been carving up his victims good, and it was the best clue they’ve got to their killer.  The Herdsman, they took to calling him — he carved the word “shepherd” into all of his victims — four of them so far, including this girl.  He figured the guy for some lunatic who thought he was “leading sheep to the fold” or some nonsense that always seemed to crop up when times got tough.  Could’ve been he was a crazy who managed to get himself indoctrinated and thought he was doing the Reapers a favor, could’ve been one of the other million and a half theories and rumors floating around C-Sec.

Turned out, Bailey realized with a wave of sinking dread, he was just a crappy speller, and they’d been barking up the wrong tree for a while.

The word — no, the _name_ — carved in this young woman’s back was: SHEPARD.

“Shit,” he breathed, shaking his head. “ _Shit._ This thing just got a whole lot messier.”  Bailey leaned against the console as Arturicus closed the pod; after a few more taps against the keyboard, it slid back into place with the others.  He was getting a headache — it was climbing on top of the one he was already dealing with, and he wasn’t sure if that made it a new headache, or just a worse one.

“I imagine we’re going to have to notify Commander Shepard of this development,” Arturicus said, sealing the morgue and signing out of the interface.

“You’re not wrong about that.  I’m just not looking forward to being the one who’s gotta do it.”  The commander had a whole lot of other things on her plate, not the least of which were the damned Reapers.  But if someone out there was killing people and branding them with her name, she needed to be told.  He pinched the bridge of his nose, hard.  It did exactly crap for the pounding ache in his head.  “All right.  I’m gonna head back upstairs, send a message out to the _Normandy_ and see if we can scrounge a few minutes of Shepard’s time.”

Arturicus took out his omni-tool and tapped quickly against the keys.  “Agent Seldra mentioned he saw… hmm…”

“Thought he saw what?”

“A member of the _Normandy_ crew hanging around the docks.”

“Any trouble?” he asked, already knowing the answer.  Shepard put up with exactly no shit from her people.  One of the reasons he liked her.

“No, just a game of Skyllian Five, sir.”  

“Still? How the hell long can they keep that up without going broke?”

“Different players come and go, sir.  The game’s been going on some weeks now.”  The omni-tool beeped, and a graphic flickered to life on its display.  “Looks like the _Normandy’s_ docked in Bay D-24, sir.  Shall I send a message?”

“Yeah.  Give the commander a holler and let her know there’s an urgent matter I’ve got to talk to her about.  …And Arturicus?”

The turian put away his omni-tool.  “Yes, sir?”

“You ever join in that game?”

His officer stiffened, like he’d been caught pilfering a cookie-jar.  “It’s an effective way to keep an eye on the area when refugees outnumber C-Sec agents ten to one, sir,” he replied, linking hands behind his back and standing at attention.

“…Ever win anything?”

Arturicus’ mandibles gave a twitchy little flutter, and for a second Bailey was almost convinced he wasn’t going to answer at all.  

“Two hundred, twenty five credits the last game I played in, sir,” he finally said, before adding, “…I was off-duty at the time.”

“Never said you weren’t, son.  And were there any… ah, incidents with the refugees?”

“None, sir.”  The officer tilted his head at Bailey.  “Is there something you’re getting at here, sir?”

“Just this:  Arturicus, if you think playing poker with the refugees helps keep the peace and helps us keep an eye on things, I want you to _keep on doing it_ ,” he said, turning and heading for the elevator.  

“Is there anything else, sir?”

“Yeah.  Don’t lose your shirt.”

 

###

 

_I love you, Garrus Vakarian._

Simple words, really.  Five of them.  Nine syllables.  Twenty-two letters.  

But saying them, actually _saying_ them was a leap and free-fall — an appropriate metaphor, considering where they were — a moment of terror followed immediately by a rush of _freedom._   There had been reasons to hold back before, or they’d _seemed_ like reasons at the time.  What it had all come down to was fear.  Fear of letting Garrus in (he was, already), letting him see her vulnerable (he had, already), putting herself on the line and saying something that needed to be said, no matter how hard it was to give voice to it.

Thing was, it hadn’t been that hard — and not just because of an _inspired mood_ , either. 

The truth of the matter was… kind of grim, when you got down to it, but she didn’t want to die _without_ having said those words to him.

Thena had died once.  And she still remembered it, the clawing panic, the icy fear, and then quiet _acceptance_ as her oxygen hissed away, as she realized and saw what she was facing, knowing there would be no last-minute rescue, no eleventh-hour miracle — nothing but a cold, quiet, lonely death.  With those last stuttering, struggling breaths, she’d whispered goodbyes only she heard.  That experience had brought with it the knowledge that it was a whole hell of a lot worse saying goodbye to someone you knew wasn’t there to hear you than it was saying “I love you” to that same someone who _was._

Besides, it wasn’t every day she got to knock Garrus cool-as-a-cucumber Vakarian for such a loop, and she wondered if “whomperjawed” was an appropriate term for a turian — a lot more jaw to whomper, after all.  It didn’t take long for her to figure out he’d recovered from his shock well enough to gloat, and as he did, she decided missing a shot was a small price to pay to see Garrus that pleased with himself.

“So,” she said, turning against him and smiling as his arm tucked tight around her shoulders.  “That’s what it takes to make this your _favorite_ spot on the Citadel?”  She hooked one hand in the neck of his armor and pulled Garrus down until they were eye to eye.  “Crowning yourself King of the Bottle-Shooters?”

He breathed a short laugh and though his mandibles stretched in a grin, the look in his eyes was something else entirely — something else that made her stomach give a pleasant flip.  “I think you know the answer to that, Shepard.”

“I think if there are a hundred and thirty-seven regulations telling you not to go to the top of the Presidium,” she replied, lowering her voice and leaning in closer, “there are probably at least three times that number telling you why you shouldn’t debauch your girlfriend there.”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it,” he said, the words rumbling so deeply with subharmonics that they were practically a purr.  Thena she slid her hands to either side of his neck, before traveling upward, fingertips intent on finding a very specific spot beneath his fringe.  He chuckled again, hands tightening on her waist.  “And it looks like you have, too.”

“I think you’ve given it more thought than I have.”  Her breath caught at the way his hands slid from her waist to her hips and she swallowed hard.  “You’re way ahead of me, Vakarian.”

“And I think you’re catching up,” he replied, leaning closer, tipping his head to give her hand better access, eyes closing as her fingers searched and stroked.

“What can I say?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows at him the very moment her fingertips glided across the exact spot she was looking for.  “I’m a quick study.”

Garrus’ quick, sharp intake of air told her all she needed to know.  “Believe me,” he rumbled, eyes opening and meeting her own, “I’ve noticed.”

“Mmm, I bet.  There’s a reason you wore armor on a date, isn’t there?” she asked, pressing a slow kiss against his mouth.

His answer came murmured against her lips.  “About three hundred and five reasons.”

“Enough for you to give a damn?” she asked, her short nails gently scratching a path down from beneath his fringe along the side of his neck.

“Seventy-two of ‘em have some pretty steep fines, Shepard,” Garrus pointed out, tilting his head at her.  “Whatever you’ve got in mind, it’s going to have to wait until we get back to the _Normandy_.”

“I’ve got… quite a few things in mind.  The trip back to the ship might be long enough to alphabetize them.”  Reluctantly, she stepped away; just as reluctantly, Garrus loosened his arms and let her go.  “You?”

“Oh, I’ve just got the one thing in mind.”  His mandibles flared slightly into something akin to a smirk.  “But I think we should do it as many times as possible.”

It felt… wrong, impossible, even, to feel as _lucky_ as this.  And something inside of Thena fought against that happiness, reminding her that the galaxy was going to hell, that people were dying — every day they were dying, or _worse_ , that the galaxy still had people like Kai Leng and the Illusive Man in it, that there would still be politicians who cared more about _politics_ than keeping people safe.  Did she deserve such happiness amid such tragedy and pain?  If anyone else had asked her that question, Thena’s answer would have been a resounding, unflinching _yes._   _Hold on to it,_ she would have told them.  _Don’t let anyone take that from you._   It was different, though, ascribing those same attitudes to herself.  She still wasn’t sure she deserved… _this._

All the same, she wasn’t giving Garrus up, and she wasn’t letting anyone take him — or what they had — away from her.

Together they collected the rifles and unbroken bottles, loading everything into the skycar and heading back to the docking bay.

“So,” Garrus began, expertly maneuvering the vehicle into traffic.  “Good day?”

“Best in a while,” she replied, relaxing lazily into the seat.  

“I thought about… doing something else.  Actually scoped out Purgatory, figuring we might unwind with a few drinks, but…  I don’t know, didn’t seem _right._ ”

“And you thought taking me to the highest point on the Presidium to illegally shoot bottles with sniper rifles you pinched from the armory sounded like the sort of thing I’d think was a good time?”

“That’s about the long and short of it.”

“I am one lucky woman, you know that?” she asked, flashing him a smile.

Garrus, to his credit, only sent her a pointed sidelong glance before turning his attention back to the traffic.  “Not half as lucky as you’re _gonna_ be—”

Shepard’s omni-tool chirped suddenly.  Unwelcomely.

“Hold that thought,” she said as she pulled up the comm interface.  “Shepard here.”

Samantha Traynor’s voice came through the channel, and she sounded strangely… _guilty_.  “Commander, ah, I… hope I’m not interrupting anything…”

Thena shot Garrus a _look_ , but his expression gave nothing away.  “No, you’re fine Traynor.  We’re actually on our way back to the ship.  What’s the problem?”

“A message came through from an Agent Arturicus, with C-Sec.  Commander Bailey’s asked for a moment of your time.  Apparently there’s an urgent matter he needs to discuss with you.”

“Did this Arturicus say any of what it was in regards to?”

“No, ma’am, he didn’t.  Just that it was urgent.”

“Could have to do with Udina and the coup,” Garrus said under his breath.  Thena nodded; she’d been thinking much the same thing.  Everything was still a hell of a mess and she knew just how full Bailey’s hands were trying to put things back together again.  It was also a mess Cerberus caused — instigated by Councilor Udina, who’d probably been indoctrinated somewhere along the way, or just swayed by the Illusive Man’s deep pockets — and any mess Cerberus caused, Thena knew she’d be cleaning up.  As much as she tried to distance herself, her ideologies, her priorities from Cerberus while she worked under their colors, as much as she’d hated being the Illusive Man’s pet project, there was a tether between them — when Cerberus caused damage, she fixed it; when Cerberus endangered lives, she saved as many as she could; and when the day came that she _could_ do more than simply fix whatever the Illusive Man broke — or ordered broken — she’d be waiting to punch the son of a bitch right in the mouth.  For now, though, it was time to fix what was broken and clean up the messes left behind.

“All right, Traynor — no problem.  We’ll head over now.”

“I’ll relay that to Agent Arturicus and Commander Bailey, ma’am.”

“Thanks.  Shepard out.”  The omni-tool went dark and Thena looked askance at Garrus, who was pulling the car into dock.  “Bailey never says anything’s urgent.”

“Yeah, same thing crossed my mind.  You want some company for this?”

She nodded.  “And admit it; you’re just as curious as I am.”

“Shepard,” Garrus said, opening the doors and pushing himself out of the car, “when a C-Sec man like Bailey uses the word ‘urgent,’ it doesn’t get me curious; it makes me wonder who blew what up and how big the blast radius is.”

“So you’re thinking Udina?”

“I’m thinking I _hope_ it’s Udina.”

 


	2. Day One

The Citadel’s morgue was nothing if not _solid_ , and the first thing Thena wondered was why no one had been evacuated down here the second Cerberus set even one filthy foot on the Citadel.  But undertakings like that took time, and Cerberus knew too well the advantages that came with the element of surprise.  There simply hadn’t been enough _time_ — not that she had to like it.

“So, our guy,” Bailey said, leading the way.  “He’s got a pretty consistent MO.  All the victims so far have been human refugees.”

“Easier for him to pick off?” she asked.

“Less likely they’ll be noticed if they go missing,” Garrus pointed out.  “Especially with so many coming in.  Hard to keep track of them all.  Some are gonna fall through the cracks; some always do.”

“You’re both right,” said Bailey.  “People coming in have lost everything.  They’re desperate.  Someone offers help, most of ‘em are gonna take it, no questions asked.”  As Bailey spoke, he hit a series of keys on a holo-keyboard until four containment units slid from a garage-sized storage locker, were plucked up by giant conveyer-claws, and whisked to a viewing bay.

“Biotags have helped ID the previous victims, but none of them have family on the station.  They’ve been from Reaper-invaded worlds and colonies — we’ve got no kin to notify.  The latest victim’s biotag got corrupted somehow; we haven’t been able to ID her yet.”

“But you’re figuring she was a refugee?”  Thena asked.  Bailey gave a grim nod.

“There’s always someone who finds an opportunity in disaster,” Garrus muttered, disgusted.

“I’m… sympathetic, Bailey, and if you need my help on this, you’ve got it.  But I’ve got to confess, I’m not really seeing what this has to do with me.”

“I’m getting to that part, Shepard.”  Bailey opened the door to the viewing bay, ushering Garrus and Thena both in.  The room smelled sharply of antiseptic, and the four pods waited on steel tables, all open.  “Our ME’s on the way, but I can get you up to speed.  Like I said, all four victims have been human, so far, all strangled.  He’d marked the first three all the same, changing things up on his fourth victim.  Fourth victim, kinda unique in a few ways — we’ll get to that.”

Thena peered into the pods, one after another, very carefully keeping her eyes off the victims’ faces.  She’d seen death before — she was no stranger to it at all, in fact, but this was too close, too… personal.  This wasn’t a battlefield and these weren’t casualties of war or victims of crossfire; someone had hunted them down and ended their lives — someone had _planned_ to do this. 

“Marked them how?”

Bailey pressed a button and a soft whirr came from the first three pods as rollers inside carefully turned the bodies over.  The word “SHEPHERD” had been carved into their backs, the word spanning from shoulder to shoulder, each letter jagged, dark, and deep against the ashen pale skin.  Instantly, a wave of déjà vu crashed over her and her lungs froze, her stomach clenched, and her hands curled into fists that had nothing to hit.

_Hey Shepherd…_

It didn’t seem possible.  Hell, Thena didn’t want it to _be_ possible.  She barely heard Garrus over the pulse thundering in her ears as he explained to Bailey that wasn’t how she spelled her name.  She knew that, of course, but she also had a creeping, cold inkling that it didn’t matter.

Bailey shook his head, looking down again at the victim in the pod, saying, “We noticed that too, believe you me.  To tell you the truth, we didn’t see any connection _to_ the commander — at first.”

“Something’s changed, I’m guessing?” Garrus asked.  At any other time, Thena might have smiled — you could take the turian out of C-Sec, but you couldn’t take C-Sec out of the turian — but this wasn’t any other time.  It was worse.  She knew Garrus, knew he was a realist who wanted to be a cynic more often than he actually _was;_ he was trying to distance her from this, trying to find the coincidence and classify it as nothing more than a coincidence. 

She knew better. 

When they all walked over to the final pod and looked inside, Garrus swore so viciously that not even Thena’s translator could pick out what he’d said.

“My officer said the same thing,” Bailey drawled, grimly.

Whatever Thena might have been expecting, what she saw didn’t even come close.

The woman’s hair had been red before it had been shaved off, but even that small contradiction did nothing to hide the markings up and down her arms, spanning her entire torso.  They didn’t look exactly like Jack’s tattoos, per se, but the effect was clear — and obvious — enough.  The lips had been painted, full and dark, the eyelids smudged with grey.  The girl looked how Jack might have appeared to a casual viewer, to someone who’d only seen her at a distance.

Ugly bruises encircled her neck.

“What the hell did he do to her?” she breathed, shock stealing most of her voice, and sudden anger making it ragged.

The next voice made her jump.

“Ligature marks at the wrists and ankles indicate the victim was restrained, possibly over the course of days.  Tracheal bruising and crushed windpipe indicate the cause of death as strangulation, likely without the aid of any sort of implement; bruising patterns indicate he used his hands.  Bruising patterns also indicate the suspect is likely human, batarian or asari.”  They turned to find a salarian in a C-Sec uniform, with the addition of a pristine lab coat, one long blue stripe down the right arm.  He was reading the autopsy report off an omni-tool.  “Scans also indicate… disfigurement and… ah, body modifications were likely, though not definitely, performed posthumously.”  

Though chilling, the knowledge provided Thena a flash of relief for the dead girl.

“Sorry, Doc, I figured you got held up, so I got Shepard and Vakarian here up to speed.  Nearly, anyway.”  Bailey turned to Shepard, indicating the newcomer.  “Commander Shepard, this is Doctor Taron Sarik, C-Sec’s head medical examiner.”

“An honor to finally meet you, Commander,” Doctor Sarik said brightly, stepping forward and extending his hand.  “Granted, it would have been far preferable under different circumstances.”

It was hard to gauge the age of salarians in general, but Doctor Sarik seemed somewhat on the young side.  And perhaps it was simply the inherently brisk demeanor so common to salarians, but Doctor Sarik seemed also exceedingly _chipper._

“Doc’s new to the post,” Bailey explained.  “Sharp as a tack, but still a little wet behind the ears.”

Garrus and the medical examiner exchanged a patently puzzled look as the latter reached up curiously to feel the side of his head.

“I’ll explain later,” Thena murmured in an undertone.  Hell, Bailey was even more generous with his idioms than she was.

And with the sort of mental swiftness customary to salarians, Doctor Sarik whisked over to the side of the pod holding the fourth victim.  “There’s nothing unique about the implements used to render the drawings on this woman’s skin.  Mostly permanent ink — the pigments used are native to Thessia, possibly purchased in Illium, or even Omega.  Thessian pigments themselves are popularly used in tattoo art, but in this case there are traces of solvents and resins present on the skin that tell us the killer used nothing more sophisticated than common inks purchased at any number of asari-run shops throughout the galaxy.  There are some such shops even on the Citadel.”

“Do you think we’re looking for an asari?” Garrus asked as Sarik hit the same switch used to turn over the body.

“It’s far too early to tell, but I’d say that’s unlikely.  Given the asari tendency toward biotics, while they _could_ kill with their hands, they don’t tend to.  And none of the victims have shown any indication that biotic ability played a part in their deaths.”

The young woman, made to look so like Jack, was turned over and her back revealed.  SHEPARD, in deep-cut letters, glared up at them; it seemed somehow wrong that _this_ surprised Thena less than the woman’s altered appearance.  She wondered if maybe that had been the whole point — no, not Bailey’s intent, but whoever the sick bastard was who’d done this in the first place.

No, she was no stranger to death, no stranger to violence — Mindoir had been a hell of an initiation there, followed up by the events on Akuze, Virmire, everything on the other side of the Omega-4 relay, but she’d never experienced something like _this,_ that someone had died — no, been _killed_ … why?  Because of her?  _For_ her?  She knew there were deranged people in the galaxy, but this… this couldn’t be blamed on indoctrination, couldn’t be blamed on the Reapers, couldn’t be blamed on Cerberus.  

The only person who could be blamed was the person who’d let him out in the first place. 

After several seconds of disgusted silence, Bailey coughed once.  “We, ah, think the killer may be… trying to get your attention.”

“I think he’s got it,” Thena muttered.  “ _Shit_ ,” she added in a hiss.  Cursing again through gritted teeth, she took out her omni-tool.  “EDI.  This is Shepard.  Come in.”

“Yes, Shepard?”

“Were all of the _Normandy’s_ communications logs scrubbed with the Alliance refit?”

“No, Commander.”  _Despite their best efforts,_ her tone seemed to say.  “I still have records of all incoming and outgoing communications.  Was there one in particular you needed?”

“Send me all incoming messages date-stamped to within a week after Jack joined the crew.”

“Yes, Shepard.”  A few scant seconds ticked by before EDI’s voice came across the channel again.  “I have the messages you requested.  Shall I forward them to your omni-tool?”

“Yes.  And keep it secure.”

“Of course, Shepard.”  Her omni-tool chimed seconds later, carrying a communiqué from EDI with several encrypted messages attached.  It took no time at all to find the one she was looking for.

“You got something you want to share with the class, Shepard?” Bailey asked, pressing a series of buttons that closed the pods and whisked them back into storage.  “Know something about this guy?”

“I wish I didn’t,” she said, forwarding the message in question to Bailey, Sarik, and, after a moment’s consideration, to Garrus as well, not looking forward at all to the conversation they were very likely going to have, later. “He calls himself ‘Billy,’“ she said as the others in the room accessed the message.  

Text slowly filled her omni-tool’s display.

**Hey Shepherd heard I have you to thank for getting out of Purgatory (sent a ship to round me up, but they didn’t weapons-check good enough)! I’m gonna carve your name instead of mind into my next victim as thanks, got anyone you need dead (haha)? You did take a shot at me though on my way out so I have to kill you, you know how it goes.  Dad taught me that you let anybody hurt you, they get ideas so you make sure to send a message, not like I’m sending now, though!  See you around, the people who live here are coming back and it’s showtime!  Look around for your name, I’ll make sure you find it before I find you! Billy…**

“I received that message a few days after recruiting a squad member off the _Purgatory._ ”

Garrus’ silence was stony and the look in his eyes unreadable; Doctor Sarik was still reading the message intently, likely for the fourth or fifth time already.  Bailey, on the other hand, took no pains to hide his shock.  

“The _Purgatory?_ ” he asked.  “That was the one run by that lowlife Kuril?”

“I assume you’ve never sent anyone to lockup on the _Purgatory_ , Bailey?” she asked.

“I never said that,” he replied with a shake of his head.  “I said Kuril was a lowlife.  Unfortunately, he was a lowlife in charge of a prison ship full of even worse lowlifes, and sometimes that’s where people get sent.  Heard there was some kind of dust-up on that ship a while back.  Bunch of high-security prisoners escaped and Kuril was killed.  Would this be the, ah, ‘recruitment’ mission you’re talking about?”

“Warden Kuril decided Shepard would be more valuable to him as a commodity than a customer,” supplied Garrus, coolly.  “Not much choice left but to fight our way out.”

“Taking our new squad member with us,” Thena added.  “When I got this message…”  She still remembered the confusion followed by the helpless frustration she’d felt the moment the words flickered across her terminal monitor, the realization that there was nothing whatsoever to go on, nothing to build on, no way to _do_ anything about what had happened, what was about to happen when the writer of that message sent it.  “There wasn’t any way to trace it at the time.  There was nothing I could do about it.  And I had a team I had to prepare for a suicide mission.”

It was all true, and yet the words still felt like ashes on Thena’s tongue.

“Sounds like the Alliance tried to get him back under lock and key,” Bailey muttered, reading the message again.

“Sounds like they failed,” said Garrus.  He frowned, eyes still scanning the message.  “We can only speculate this guy’s human, despite the name,” he muttered, mostly to himself.  “I doubt the name’s real.”

“For that matter, we can only assume it’s a man,” Thena added.

“So all we’ve got is a _Purgatory_ escapee who’s got some kinda crazy fixation on you, Shepard?” Bailey asked.  “That’s not a lot to go on.”

She hated to admit it, but it wasn’t.

“Got any thoughts on this, Doc?” drawled Bailey, looking over at Doctor Sarik, who was still reading and re-reading the message.

“My specialties are in xenobiology, anatomy and physiology, Commander Bailey.  My knowledge of psychology, particularly abnormal human psychology, is nowhere near as vast; however, at first glance, this Billy does seem to blame Commander Shepard for having shot him, which, though understandable given the circumstances, is not entirely inaccurate.  Perhaps the fixation stems from a perceived wrong he believes the commander has perpetuated against him.  But then the tone itself doesn’t seem _angry_ , but rather… matter-of-fact, as if it is perfectly reasonable and acceptable to threaten to kill anyone under such a set of circumstances.  The reference to his — let us assume that as a gender-neutral indicator — father is curious.  I suspect there’s more to that.  The tone itself is genial, almost friendly, despite the very obvious threat.  The problem I see is that if Billy’s goal is for Commander Shepard to receive his… message, now that she has—”

She folded her arms, rocking back on her heels.  “He may start looking for me next?”

Sarik nodded.  “That is the most plausible conclu—”

“Let him.”

There was a nearly audible _click_ as the salarian’s lower lids snapped upward in a blink.  “Commander?”

“I said, _let him_ ,” she ground out, anger pounding hard in her veins, blood thundering in her ears.  _“_ Let him look for me.  Let him damn well _find me._ ”

Garrus sent her a long, calculating look lasting several beats of silence.  Then, finally:  “Let’s… call that Plan B, okay, Shepard?”

“That’s not the worst advice you’ll get today,” Bailey chimed in.

“All right,” she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in and letting it out.  “Then tell me what it is you want me to do about this, Bailey.”

Jerking a thumb at the refrigeration pod, saying, “Well, considering how you responded to the victim when you first took a look, maybe you can tell me what it was about her that got you so rattled.”

Thena kept her arms folded, fingers gripping her elbows.  “The victim was made to resemble the woman we were taking off the _Purgatory_.  Jack.”

“Any idea where Jack is now?”

There was a beat of silence as Garrus and Thena exchanged a look.  Garrus was the first so speak.  “We aren’t actually worried about Jack’s safety, are we?” he asked her in an undertone.

The ME cleared his throat.  “It’s a possibili—”

“She’d wipe the floor with him,” Garrus interrupted, his tone flat.

“Jack is… an incredibly powerful biotic,” Thena clarified.  “She doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and she’s got a… fondness for violence.  They were keeping her in stasis on the _Purgatory_.”

Bailey let out a low whistle.  “So what’s she doing now?”

Thena cleared her throat and noticed Garrus watching her, his expression very clearly saying, _Can’t wait to hear you explain this one, Shepard_.  “The Alliance decided to reward her work with me taking down the Collectors.  She’s now a biotics instructor at Grissom Academy.  Her students are currently providing support in the field.”

A beat of silence followed.

“So the ex-con’s a schoolteacher.  You know, one of these days, Shepard, I’ll learn not to be surprised by anything that comes out of your mouth.” Bailey ran one hand over his close-cropped hair.  “This Jack.  You trust her?”

“Absolutely,” she answered, without so much as a breath of hesitation.  Jack was prickly as hell, and all of her tact would barely fit a thimble, but she was trustworthy.  “I trust all my people.”

“You know how to get in touch with her? If someone thought enough of her to turn one of his victims into come kind of tribute to her, she might be able to shed a little light on this.”

Personally, Thena thought that was doubtful, since Jack had spent most of her time on the _Purgatory_ in stasis.  But Bailey had a point, however slim.  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, considering who might be willing or able to tell her where Jack and her students had been placed, and how best to initiate contact.  “In the meantime, what else can we do to help?”

“I’ll take whatever you can give me, Shepard.  This guy’s slippery.  You’d think we’d be able to get more off the victims — hair, skin cells, _something._   And we’ve gotta be careful warning the refugees something’s wrong — things are already too tense right now to go throwing another powder-keg like this into the mix. Best case scenario, we catch the guy. Worst case scenario, you make a whole lot of scared, paranoid, desperate people just a little more scared and paranoid.”

“What are you doing so far?”

“You know how thin we’re stretched after Cerberus came through this place.  I’ve got as many extra men as I can spare on duty in the holding area.”

Thena’s mind worked quickly, considering duty rosters and whose off-duty time fell when.  “I could probably spare a few men.  Vega already spends all of his time in port playing poker in that part of the station.”

Garrus nodded, adding, “Cortez, too — speaking of another set of eyes, he’s got the sharpest I know of.  EDI could recon — record some footage, see if there’s anything strange going on, any patterns, or—”  but then he frowned and shook his head.  “No, no good.  EDI doesn’t exactly _blend._ ”

She thought of Jack, who didn’t precisely blend, either.

Dr. Sarik tipped his head to the side, considering.  “Given that the killer appears to want Commander Shepard’s attention; too many additional _Normandy_ crew members may well let him know he’s achieved that objective.”

“Vega’s been a fixture in the holding area for a while now,” she countered.  “It wouldn’t be strange if he brought Cortez along with him.  Ash either; she plays a mean  hand of Skyllian Five.  She’d fit in.”

“Problem is,” Garrus said, shaking his head, “no one knows who to look for yet.”  He turned his attention to Bailey.  “Any security footage of this girl, Commander?”

“Thinkin’ we might cross-reference some shots of her with the other victims?” Bailey asked him.  “See if they talked to any of the same people?”

“Crossed my mind.”

He nodded.  “I’ve got some techs working on that now.”  Taking a step back, Bailey addressed them both.  “I appreciate you’re both willing to help — and, Shepard, even a few extra pairs of eyes’ll be helpful, spread thin as we are — and it _will_ help, but there’s a lot here we _don’t_ have, namely leads and manpower.  We’re doin’ what we can, but things have been rough here.”

“It’s also likely that the killer will attempt to use these circumstances to his advantage,” Sarik added.  

Bailey grimaced as if with actual, physical pain, which could have been the case.  “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

“Just let us know what kind of help you need, Bailey, and we’ll try to make it happen,” Thena said.

“You’ve got that reporter on board, right?  Diana Allers?”

“Yeah.”

“Whatever you do, make sure she doesn’t get wind of any of it.  Keep her busy with fluff pieces.  Better yet, send her out in the field to film an expose on that thresher maw took down a Reaper on Tuchanka.”

Thena reined in her bark of laughter so that it came out as a cough.  “Not a fan of Allers, then?”

Garrus chuckled.  “C-Sec and the press don’t exactly have a history of getting along.  One thing my father hated more than Spectres?  _Reporters._ ”

“Smart man,” intoned Bailey.  “Listen, Shepard — I trust you, and, hell, you being a Spectre, maybe you can get things done faster than we can.  That said, I know you’ve got places to be, things to shoot, and asses to kiss.”

Thena shook her head.  “We can spare some time, Bailey.  There’s other business we can wrap up here while we’re docked.”  Besides, when it came right down to it, this mess wasn’t anyone’s to fix but hers.  There was no pinning this one on Cerberus, and she knew it.

“Fair enough,” replied the commander, pulling out his omni-tool.  “I’ll forward you what we’ve got so far on the case.  Not much, but you might be able to do something with it.”

Garrus shifted his weight and leaned against a steel countertop.  “Do you think we can get any record of when the victims arrived on the Citadel?  If we can narrow down the time frame a little, we might be able to get an idea of when our guy got here.”

Bailey’s expression darkened as he let out a long breath and shook his head.  Sarik, closing his own omni-tool, looked over at Shepard and said, “The victims’ biotags have been the primary source of identification information.  Given the influx of refugees on the Citadel, and the circumstances under which they’ve been arriving, accurate passenger-lists have become a luxury.  If larger ships dock, the station keeps record of it, but numbers arriving by shuttle have been far more difficult to keep track of.”

“We’ll take what we can get, Doctor,” Thena assured him.

“Shepard’s right,” added Garrus.  “Any intel’s good intel.”

“We’ve got some information on that score, Shepard, but not much to build a case on.”  Bailey gestured to his omni-tool, adding, “Everything C-Sec has on this is in that file.  Hopefully it’ll be enough.”

Thena’s ‘tool chimed softly with the incoming message.  “If it’s not, we’re going to have to start turning over rocks and taking a look at what’s underneath,” she said.

“Under a rock is just where I’d expect to find this guy,” Bailey muttered.

 _Or out in plain sight,_ Thena added silently.  

And she knew which was worse.

 

###


	3. Day One

 

To his credit, Garrus didn’t say a whole lot during the walk back to the _Normandy_.  Oh, they talked, but about inconsequential things.  For as wonderful as the afternoon had been, a shadow was cast over everything, and even attempting to recapture that playfulness, that _happiness_ smacked too heavily of blasphemy right now, so they kept conversation to safer topics, both of them acutely aware of all the things they weren’t saying.

It lasted until the doors to her quarters slid shut behind them.

“You never said anything about getting that message.”  

His words held no accusation, just honest curiosity, and she was thankful for it, because accusations were the last thing she wanted or needed right now — particularly considering the mental flogging she was already giving herself. “What was I supposed to say, Garrus?  ‘Whoops, I let a violent criminal escape from the _Purgatory_ and it looks like he’s about to go on a killing spree’?”  She sat down hard on the foot of her bed, resting her elbows on her knees and raking her hands through her hair.  “We had a few other things on the agenda at the time, too.  I mean, I _knew_ if we didn’t stop the Collectors…”

“Not a whole hell of a lot else would’ve mattered.  I get it.”  Garrus sighed, rubbing his browplates, then running his hand back along his fringe.  He sat down next to her. “Still, we could have looked.”

“When? In between blowing up secret testing facilities and chasing mercs through the jungle and killing thresher maws because there really is no better way to see a krogan through puberty or—”

“Or going with me to confront Sidonis?  I hear you, Shepard, and understand probably better than damn near anyone else on this ship how important your crew is to you and that you’ll do anything for them, up to and including risking — and in one noteworthy case _giving up_ — your life for them.  But… you’re important to us, too.  You wouldn’t put up with some anonymous psychotic threatening any of your people; don’t think any of us would do any less for you.”

“It isn’t even that he’s threatening _me,_ ” she protested _._  

“Hate to break it to you, Shepard, but he _is._   And maybe that doesn’t bother you because of all the asses you’ve kicked up and down the galaxy.  And that’s impressive and all, but it doesn’t mean any of your damn crew are going to be okay with it.”

“Including you.”

“Hell, _especially_ me.”

She braced her arms behind her and leaned back; it was so strange to see _light_ through the window above her bed, so she kept her eyes trained on that square of blue.  “I was so… angry when I got that message.  He was gloating—” _gloating like goddamn Kai Leng_ “— he was gloating and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do.  There weren’t any leads.  There was _nothing.”_   Garrus’ hand rested lightly against her back, just between the shoulder blades.  One digit rubbed a slow, small circle against her spine.  “No leads, no time, no way to find him.”  Bitterness filled her throat, placed strain on her words as she said them.  “They seemed like good reasons before.”

“And now that people are dead, none of those reasons hold any weight.”

“They aren’t reasons anymore; they’re excuses.”  She exhaled and her shoulders slumped with it.  She’d made the call; it had been a bad one, and so now she had to live with the repercussions.  She had to live with all of the decisions she’d made over the course of her life.  “And I know that’s all true.  Hell, if there’d at least been a lead, I could have done something.  I don’t even _remember_ shooting this guy, so it’s not like I would’ve known him if I ever saw him.  We had _nothing_ to find him with.  That message—”

“Yeah, I saw.  It was fried to hell.  If nothing else, the guy knows how to cover his tracks.”

“And maybe an unshackled EDI would’ve taken the initiative to trace the message.  I don’t know.  But now… now I just look back and see all the things I could have done, things I could’ve made _time_ to do.  If I’d only—”

With a firm grip, Garrus took her by the shoulders and twisted her around on the bed, glaring sternly down at her.  He looked… almost angry, the way his facial plates were drawn forward, as if in a scowl, his mandibles pressed in tight and close.  “You were running around the damned galaxy, trying to make things good for your team, making sure we were ready to fight for you, helping us take care of our loose ends in case we died for you.  You should’ve come to— hell, I’m not even going to say ‘me,’ but _someone._ Yeah, you should have.  But you can’t change what you didn’t do.  All we can do is take this bastard down _now,_ before he’s able to do any more damage.”

“Garrus—”

“And all other things aside, this guy’s made a death threat on you.  You’ve got to at least take that seriously.”

And he _was_ taking it seriously — probably more than she was at the moment.  “Half the damn galaxy wants me dead, Garrus,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him.  “I know _you_ find me irresistible, but you’re not the majority.”

Garrus snorted a laugh.  “Says the woman who got the turians and the krogan to fight _for_ each other instead of _against_ each other.  Just because Kai Leng—”

“And let’s not forget the Reapers, various and sundry mercenaries… and I’m pretty sure whatever’s left of the Hegemony wouldn’t be too sorry to see me go, either.  One guy promising to carve me into pieces loses its scare factor in light of all that.”

“Missing the point, Shepard.”

“Sorry,” she said, trying for levity.  “I get distracted when we start counting how many people want me dead.”  Dark humor was still humor at the end of the day, but Garrus did not look amused.  Closing her eyes, Thena sat up and tipped her head forward and rolled her shoulders, taking a moment to stretch her spine.  Every muscle in her back felt riddled with knots the size of her fist.  She breathed in and held that breath a moment before letting it out again, slowly. “Do you know what bothers me more?” she asked, taking advantage of Garrus’ silence.  Opening her eyes, she lolled her head to the side and looked at him.  “I don’t know how many people he’s already killed.  How many times he’s carved my name into their skin.  We’ve got four in the morgue, but how many others were there before?  We don’t know the first damned thing about this guy, but he knows me, and apparently he knows my squad.  And I _hate_ it when someone else has the upper hand.”

Garrus looked… _thoughtful_ was the best word for it.  “That’s the good thing about you, Shepard.  You never let them keep it for long.”  Here he paused, tilting his head to the side for a moment.  “Well.  Except _me_ , of course.”

It had been such a long day, particularly for one that had started out so promisingly, and after _everything_ — good and bad — Thena found herself grateful for Garrus, that he was _there_.  Not only did he watch her back, he was the one who asked her the hard questions, and who expected, hell, _demanded_ she be honest when she answered them. After a moment or two of thoughtful silence, Thena leaned lightly against him.  His armor pressed uncomfortably through her clothes, but it was still _Garrus_ , and that was enough right now.  “So, how do you figure we get the upper hand back?”

He shifted his arm, allowing her to lean more comfortably.  “You’re asking me?”

“You’re the only ex-cop in the room.”

“I like the way you say that.  It sounds so much better than ‘twice failed C-Sec agent.’”

Tilting her head, Thena looked up at him.  “You’ve got good instincts, Garrus.  You always have.”

“Flatterer.  I was going to tell you anyway.”  He leaned back and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles.  “First thing we do?  See what we can find out about the _Purgatory_ — who escaped, who was recaptured, who died — so we can begin to get an idea of how big of a suspect list we’ve got to narrow down.  Then, we narrow down.  See if we can establish any patterns.  Going to be more difficult now, since it looks like he’s changed his MO.  No telling what else he’s changing up — or what he might _decide_ to change.  So far, we know he’s targeting refugees who’ve arrived alone — people without friends, without family, without any sort of connection.  My first guess is that he tries to make a connection with them.  Gets them to trust him.  Befriends them.”

“That way, if they go missing…”

“If the perception is this guy was their friend, he tells anyone who asks that they must’ve moved on.”

“Until the bodies are found,” Thena countered, pushing to her feet.

Garrus watched as she moved around to her small office area.  “But you heard Bailey, Shepard — they don’t want to cause a panic.  I’m thinking they’re not going to have much choice, this guy keeps doing what he’s doing.”

“Unless someone finds him first,” she replied, decrypting and transferring the C-Sec files onto two datapads and crossing the room again to hand one to Garrus.  “So let’s see what we can find.”

“Commander Shepard.”  Specialist Traynor’s voice came through the comm and filled the room.  

“Go ahead, Traynor.”

Something in the specialist’s voice sounded… peculiarly weary.  “Ms. Allers has asked me to remind you that you agreed to an interview, Commander.

Thena wondered just how many times Allers made this particular request of Traynor, and then felt an immense swell of pity for the young woman.  “Now’s… not a good time, Traynor.”

“Ma’am,” Traynor replied, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “she’s saying things like _biographical montage._ ”

Thena exhaled hard through her nose and rubbed her forehead.  “She starts saying things like _biographical expose,_ and I give you permission to shoot her.”

“Noted, Commander.”  

Looking at Garrus, she said on an aggrieved sigh, “I suppose I ought to give her something to keep Allers occupied.”  She paused.  “Like a flesh wound.”

Garrus chuckled and shook his head.  “I know you don’t mean that.”

“I absolutely mean it.”  

“Just think of the paperwork, Shepard.”

She did.  And there _would_ have been paperwork — mountains and mountains of it, likely filled out in triplicate.  Not worth it, not really.  Finally, Thena gave a grimace of distaste.  “I just… really hate having an outsider on my damn ship.”

“And given your relationship with the press in the past…”

“Hey, I have an _excellent_ relationship with the press,” she riposted, sending him a sharp, reproving look.

“Mmm.  Right.  An excellent relationship with the press.  I wonder what Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani would have to say about Commander Thena Shepard’s _excellent_ relationship with the press.”

Thena snorted.  “If only she knew just how hard I was trying not to show her my right hook while the cameras were rolling.”

“Go on and pacify Allers,” Garrus said on a chuckle.  “I’m going to stay here and get a head start on the files Bailey gave us.  See if I can pick anything out they might have missed.”  His browplates lowered in thought.  “C-Sec’s got more than enough on its plate right now; they’re practically a damn skeleton crew.  Wouldn’t surprise me if someone missed something.  Oh, and Shepard?” he added, as the door opened.

“Yeah?”

“No flesh wounds, all right?”

“Not making any promises.”

 

###

 

For as much as the reporter rubbed Thena the wrong way from the start, she was savvy enough to know the power of the press, and just how much of a potential benefit Allers’ presence could be for the Alliance, and consequently, the war effort.  There was no denying recruitment numbers were up, and insofar as Allers’ fan mail indicated, there had been an increase in medical volunteers as well, indicated by the number of blood drives going on when stores of synthetic blood seemed poised to run out.  She couldn’t argue that having a reporter on board the _Normandy_   was a good thing.  She just didn’t _like_ it.

Thena let herself in to Allers’ quarters to find the woman reading a datapad.  She looked up as the door opened.

“Hey, Commander,” she said, waving the pad a little.  “Still getting a lot of positive feedback over the Cerberus piece.  Doesn’t look like anyone’s being fooled by them anymore.”

“Or at least for now,” Thena replied, crossing her arms and walking over to the makeshift memorial wall.  She wondered who they were — people Allers had lost and wanted to remember?  Probably, which was only another stark reminder that the war had taken someone or something away from everyone who remained.  And more would be lost; that was the nature of war, if _war_ was anything natural.  “Just means Cerberus is going to need time to shift its approach again, see who they can fool in the next round.”

“Cynical much?”

She shot Allers a level look.  “You know where they got their name?”

Allers shrugged, then shook her head.  “Some ancient Earth myth, right?  Like a dog, or something?”

“Close.  Ancient Greek myth.  And, yeah.  A dog.  A three-headed dog guarding the gate to the Underworld itself.  The way I see it, even though you’ve yanked a bone out of one dog’s mouth, you’ve still got two more sets of teeth to contend with.  Cerberus is never going to rest, and they’re never going to stop, until we’ve shut them down for good.”

“Take out all three heads?”

“You got it in one.”

Allers pushed out of her chair and set aside the datapad.  “Interesting you should bring up ancient history, Commander—”

“I didn’t,” Thena countered, leaning against the wall and folding her arms.  Despite the refit, she was almost certain she could still smell the gun-oil scent that permeated this room, back when it had been Zaeed’s quarters.  “It’s not history, it’s mythology.”

“Pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to.” The reporter waved a dismissive hand.  “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Thena stiffened slightly.  At least Allers wasn’t beating around the bush — and at least she wasn’t coming into the conversation blind.  “Traynor mentioned something about you wanting to run some kind of… biography.”

“You don’t like the idea?”

“I’m a private person, Allers,” replied Thena with a shrug.  “Anyone wants to know about me, there’s more than enough out there on the extranet to satisfy their curiosity.”

“Not really.  There’s a lot of rumor and speculation, Commander.  Not a lot of hard fact.”

Something about Allers’ tone made Thena bristle defensively.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t entirely _wrong_ , either.  Insofar as her personal history was concerned, yes, there were holes in the public records.  There had to be holes — that’s what “classified” meant, after all: _not for public record_.  And then there were the things that weren’t classified, that were entirely acceptable for public record that Thena _still_ didn’t want to share.  She shot Allers a glower and said, “Sounds to me like anything people might speculate over is probably going to turn out to be classified.”

“You grew up on Mindoir.”

“I did.”

“So what was your family life like?”  She took a step closer.  “There’s no record of what happened to you after the raid, either — the Alliance successfully placed other underage Mindoir survivors in foster homes, but you just… _vanished_ , until you joined up two years later.  _This_ is the stuff people want to know, Commander Shepard.  They know the hero, but they want to know the _person_ behind the hero.  You keep saying that you’re ‘just a soldier,’ but to a lot of people, you’re larger than life — you’re a living legend.  Don’t you want to help remind them that you’re like the rest of us?”

Thena looked down at her arms, crossed tightly over her chest, belatedly realizing the body language she was communicating — and gave the reporter a level look.  But she didn’t drop her arms.  “What is it you want, Allers?”

But she knew.  She knew, and she didn’t want to give it up.

“I just want people to know the _person_ behind the hero.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request.  It truly wasn’t.  But something inside Thena balked all the same.  A scant few people knew about her life on Mindoir, before the raid.  Fewer still knew what filled the intervening years before she was old enough to join the military.  They weren’t stories she was keen on sharing.  “I’ll tell you what.  You draft up some questions, and I’ll think about answering them.  But if I tell you it’s not your business—”

“Got ‘em right here,” she replied crisply, handing over a datapad.  Thena took it warily and skimmed the questions Allers wanted answers to.  As she’d suspected, some of them _were_ intensely personal.  Some were outright confidential.

She looked from reporter to datapad and back again.  “Tell me again why you think this is so damned important?”

“You tell people you’re ‘just a soldier,’ Commander, but I don’t think you realize a lot of people don’t see you that way.  And no matter how many times as you _say_ you’re just a soldier, there are still people who… don’t believe it.  Who think you’re something… above the rest of us—”

“Come on, Allers—”

“I’m not joking, Commander.  Maybe _you_ don’t get it?  But a lot of other people do — you motivate them.  You inspire them.  I want them to see that you _aren’t_ that different from them.  You overcame — pardon my French — some intense shit over the years.  And there are some people going through some pretty intense shit right now.  They need to know you’ve got even half an idea of where they are and where they’ve been. You say you aren’t that different from the rest of us?  Well, Commander, now’s your chance to prove it.”

“The war isn’t about _me,_ Allers,” she protested, however weakly.

“Maybe not.  But believe it or not, you’re all some people have left.”

Thena’s eyes fell to the datapad screen again.  “You’re actually serious about this, aren’t you?”

“I could show you the mail I’ve been getting, if it’ll convince you.”

“No, that’s… no.  That’s okay.”  She rubbed hard at her forehead.  “Where… ah, when did you want to start?”

“The sooner, the better.  As it happens, I’m free now.  Let’s start with Mindoir.”

 

###

 

It was a hell of a time for anyone to pull off a stunt like this, thought Garrus as he opened and began skimming Bailey’s file.  As he took in facts and statements and felt them settle into his brain, he felt as if he were working an old muscle that hadn’t been used in too long, but there they were, mental muscles and sinews he’d thought withered and gone when he left C-Sec, slowly coming awake, stretching and growing alert beneath the surface.

All four victims had been refugees.  That much they already knew.  All four had been strangled.  All four had been carved with — previous misspellings aside — Shepard’s name.  That part bothered him the most.  He read Billy’s message again.

_Hey Shepherd heard I have you to thank for getting me out of Purgatory…_

_I’m gonna carve your name instead of mine into my next victim as thanks…_

Going by the message Billy had sent — and it was a mistake to take a psychotic at his word, but his word was all they had right now — using Shepard’s name was meant to be a one-time thing.  A way of thanking her, showing his gratitude for getting him off the _Purgatory_.  Doctor Sarik seemed to think Billy’s motive towards Shepard was at the very least _hidden_ in the message, but Garrus wasn’t so sure.  A lot of time had passed since they’d sprung Jack from the _Purgatory_ ; a con feeling cocky a week after his escape wasn’t going to feel the same way more than a year later.  Sarik probably wasn’t _wrong,_ but there had to be something moreto it.  And that _something more_ depended a lot on how Billy’s year had gone.  If the state of the galaxy was any indication, it probably hadn’t been going very well.  If he was picking off refugees, he was likely one himself.

Billy’s year probably hadn’t gone very well at _all._

Garrus took the datapad to the small sofa and sat down, propping his feet up on the table.  “Hey, EDI?” he asked, pitching his voice in the direction of the ceiling.

“Yes, Garrus?”

“What kind of intel do you think you can get me on the prison ship _Purgatory_?”

There was a brief pause.  “That may depend on what type of information you’re looking for.  Though I predict I will be able to obtain most anything you require.”

Best to start at the beginning, he decided, opening a new file on the datapad and taking notes.  “How many prisoners on board the ship altogether — _before_ we broke Jack out?”

“Together the _Purgatory_ housed two-thousand prisoners, five-hundred of whom were in cryostasis, eight-hundred officers, and two hundred administrative, janitorial, food-service, and other miscellaneous staff.”

“That’s just about two to one, prisoners to officers — if you take the cryo prisoners out of consideration,” he murmured to himself.

“One point eight-seven-five to one, actually.”

He breathed a laugh and shook her head.  “I was rounding up, EDI.”

“Of course.”

“And how many escapees were there, total?”

“One hundred eight, including Jack.”

“We aren’t including Jack,” he said, amending the number before EDI replied with, “One hundred seven.”

Still too large of a number to deal with comfortably.  Garrus frowned.  “And of that, how many were recaptured?”

There was a brief pause.  “Sixty-two escapees were recaptured alive and taken into custody on various ships—”

“Wait.  ‘Various’ ships?  So the Alliance didn’t pick them all up?”

“Recall, Garrus, the prisoners on the _Purgatory_ were not all human.  Alliance ships recaptured some escapees, as did turian, asari, and salarian ships, which then returned prisoners to the relevant authorities.  Of the remaining forty-five, twenty-eight were killed in recapture attempts, leaving seventeen remaining escapees still at-large or otherwise unaccounted for.”

 _Otherwise unaccounted for_ sounded ominous, but Garrus knew all too well that criminals had enemies on the outside as well as on the inside, and just because they weren’t being held within _Purgatory’s_ walls anymore, it didn’t mean they were free and happy, living the high life.  “Think you can get me a list of names?”

“I should have no difficulty accessing the necessary files.”

“Forward the info to both me and Shepard.  She’s going to want this.”

The door opened and Shepard strode in, looking more irritable than when she left.  “I’m going to want what?”

“Our list of suspects.”

She stopped cold and stared at him, irritation sliding into something a whole lot more impressed.  It was a shift in the right direction, as far as Garrus was concerned.  “You got a list of suspects already?  Not bad, Vakarian.”

“Well.  EDI helped, a little.  And don’t get your hopes up.  We’ve still got a crapload of intel to sift through.”

“How many names?”

“Seventeen.”

“Out of…”

“I assisted Garrus in narrowing down a list of over a hundred _Purgatory_ escapees, Shepard.”

Shepard’s brows lifted as she breathed an expletive.  “Do me a favor, EDI, and familiarize yourself with the information packet I received from Commander Bailey,” she said, though he could tell just from the look on her face that she was at least partially convinced EDI had already done exactly that.

“Yes, Shepard.”

She collapsed onto the couch and plucked her abandoned datapad from the table before swiveling her body around to prop her feet up on his lap.  “What’s the best way to start narrowing the field?  Names do no good — I think we already agreed ‘Billy’ is an alias.  Run a biotag check, see if anyone’s been active anywhere that got them noticed?  Maybe run a check on MOs?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illustration by Plutokitty

 

 

He looked at her for a moment — a long moment, if Garrus was going to be honest — noting the way Shepard was looking at the datapad with single-minded determination.  “So,” he ventured carefully and, he hoped, innocuously, “how’d the interview go?”

Blue eyes flicked up from the datapad and held his gaze for several seconds.  “Oh, we are _not_ talking about that right now,” she replied with a bark of humorless laughter.  “No, talk to me about MOs, Vakarian.  Talk to me about suspects and how many possibilities we’re looking at and even talk to me about what kind of shape the _Purgatory_ wreckage is in these days, but—”

“Don’t ask about the interview,” he echoed.  “Got it.  All right, well, cross-referencing MOs may not do a damn bit of good — we don’t know if Billy _always_ strangled his victims.  But we could probably check and see whether any of our guys made a habit of carving up their victims.  Could run a biotag check too, but if a tag’s in the system, and it’s been flagged, then it would’ve come out then and there that the person with the tag was an escaped con, which would’ve gotten them arrested all over again, anyway.  And don’t forget — we’ve still got the Reapers to contend with.  No way to tell which planets these scumbags took off for.  That husk’s head you blew off last week could’ve been one of these names.” Shepard wanted him to talk to her about anything that wasn’t the interview with Allers?  Garrus had more than enough material to oblige her.

“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight.”  Shepard’s expression was edging back into annoyance and incredulity. “We’ve got a list of suspects who could be alive or dead, who could be our guy, but might not, with a bunch of different MOs, because he could have strangled them all before and he could have carved his name in them before, but he might _not_ have.”

Garrus shrugged.  He’d seen Shepard’s brand of frustration before — primarily in Shepard herself, but also in any number of new C-Sec recruits, fresh out of the academy.  “We’ve still got more names than we had before,” he reminded her.  “And holos and vids to go along with them.  From that we can eliminate the turian, krogan, and salarian escapees, leaving asari, human, and drell — and including them’s iffy, given the handprint.  Doc seemed to think we were looking for an asari, a batarian, or a human.”

Nodding slowly, Shepard added, “And never assume a salarian hasn’t already cross-referenced all the possibilities five times.”

“Well.  Mordin would have.  We don’t know this kid that well.  Let’s mention it, just in case.  As for now, we’ve got seventeen names, and once we figure out a few more factors, we’ll be able to narrow that down even more.”  Shepard didn’t reply.  At all.  She simply sat there, staring at him with an expression that looked… _impressed._ It was a welcome return after that brief foray into annoyance, but it puzzled him all the same.

“What?” he asked.

“You must’ve been one hell of a cop, Vakarian.”

“I like to think I was,” he said, shrugging.  “Would’ve been even better if not for all the damn rules.”

She tipped her head to the side, grinning at him.  “Bailey doesn’t seem to have that many rules.”

“You saying I should consider a career change?”

“Not on your life.”

“Or yours, Shepard.”


	4. Day One

Thena’s eyes burned and her neck ached, but between herself, Garrus, and EDI, they’d managed to eliminate just under half of the names from their suspect list, simply by virtue of handprint alone.  Doctor Sarik had agreed a drell handprint would have left a different pattern on the victims, and that they were most certainly looking for a batarian, an asari or a human killer.  That alone eliminated nine names from the list: two krogran, four turians, one salarian, a volus, and, even more surprisingly than that, a hanar.

“I’d expected more krogan, fewer hanar,” she said, frowning at the datapad.  Garrus rolled his shoulders and neck.

“The krogan take care of their own business,” explained Garrus.  “It’s not that they don’t _have_ psychopaths, it’s that they tend to deal with them _themselves._   Think about it — the genophage was a factor for thousands of years; the krogan wouldn’t want anyone contaminating a shrinking gene pool.  If there were krogan on the _Purgatory_ at all, they were probably outcasts or exiles.  Probably didn’t call Tuchanka home.”

Thena thought a moment, then shook her head.  “And I can’t see Wrex paying Kuril off to keep undesirables away from Tuchanka, either.”

“Hell no.  I could see undesirables paying Kuril to keep them off Tuchanka if they weren’t welcome there, though.  Spirits know I would if I was trying to avoid a pissed-off Wrex.”

“All right,” she said, looking back down to the datapad.  “So that leaves us an asari, four humans, three batarians.”  She frowned, but before her thoughts could complete the dark turn they seemed intent on making, Garrus’ hand was on her knee.

“Hey.  You don’t know that this has anything to do with Aratoht.”

“I don’t know that it doesn’t.  It’d make sense if he _was_ batarian.”

“Except that he was threatening you before anyone else was.”

Her smile was a grim one.  “All that means is that he was ahead of the curve.”  

Garrus tipped his head at her, exasperation more than evident in his eyes, in the way his mandibles were pressed in tight against his face.  “No,” he said firmly, “what it means is we’ve got more names to strike off this list.”

Thena looked at the eight names for a long moment.  The fish tank bubbled softly, filling the silence.  “We need more information,” she finally said.

“I think I know where you’re going with this.”

“Can you blame me?”

“Hell no,” Garrus said.  “I was going to suggest it if you didn’t.”

 

###

 

“Your… _name_ was carved into their bodies?” Liara looked up sharply from Bailey’s report, fixing wide blue eyes on Thena before looking down at the pad again.

“Misspelled at first, but… yeah.”

Liara cycled rapidly through the documents on the display.  When she reached the list of suspect names Thena and Garrus had put together, she gave a slow shake of her head.  “You can remove the asari name from the list.”

“Someone you know?” asked Garrus.

Liara looked up, her expression caught between a frown and a scowl, though it wasn’t directed at either of them.  “She was a rogue operative of the previous Shadow Broker.  He was paying Kuril to keep her locked up.”

“Why not just have her killed?”

“Incarcerating her on the _Purgatory_ was more of a punishment for her, I suppose.  Death might have been too merciful.”  She looked down at the datapad again.  “Tell me what you need me to do, Shepard,” Liara asked, eyes still scanning the file.

That was it.  “Tell me what you need.”  No conditions, no strings, no negotiations, no demands.  It was such a welcome change from how things had been going lately that it took Thena by surprise.  A rush of guilt followed that surprise; how bad were things getting if she expected one of her oldest friends to demand a favor in return for catching a murderer?

“We need an information broker,” she answered.

“Rumor has it you’re the best,” Garrus added, dryly.

“That’s not rumor; it’s fact.  I should know,” Liara added, a gleam in her eye.  “I started the rumor.”  She looked down again at a holo taken of the latest crime scene, of Billy’s latest victim, and flinched, all traces of humor fleeing her expression.  With a quick motion, she changed the topmost document back to the list of names.

“We need to narrow that list down as much as possible.”  

Liara frowned harder.  “I’ll see what else I can come up with.  Maybe personal histories more useful than what you got off the _Purgatory_.  I… may even be able to pinpoint their last known whereabouts, which we can compare with worlds and colonies taken by the Reapers.  But…”

“But since our guy is here and he’s preying on refugees, chances are good he came from an invaded world.”

“Exactly.”

“See what you can find out anyway?”

“Of course, Shepard.”

As they left Liara’s quarters, Thena’s omni-tool chimed again - and again with an incoming message.  She saw who it was from and barely stifled her groan. 

“Problems?” Garrus asked.  “Wait,” he sighed, “don’t answer that.”

“It’s Allers,” she said in a low tone.  “It’s about that damned biography.”

He stopped and looked down at her, and damned it if didn’t look like he was arching a browplate at the news.  “So you went through with it?”

 Making a face, she nodded.  “She… she told me she wants people to ‘know the person behind the hero,’  and what’s that even supposed to _mean_?”  Without waiting for an answer, Shepard went on. “She seems to think it’ll help with morale.  But I don’t… Garrus, I don’t see _how._ ”

“Well, you are a little larger than life, Shepard.”

“Don’t you start,” she muttered, sending him a dark look before opening Allers’ message.

“All right, I won’t start.  But mostly because you look like you’d shoot me if I did.  Anyway, I should probably get back to the battery.  All appearances to the contrary, I don’t just hang around this ship being good-looking.”

“…Hell,” Thena muttered, leaning hard against the wall.  “ _Hell._ ”

“Or, you know, the giant guns can probably calibrate themselves.  We are docked, after all.”  Smoothly, he took her by the elbow and guided her into the battery.  “Okay, what’s the problem?” he asked, the door closing behind them.  “‘Cause I can see there’s a problem here.”

Thena rubbed her forehead, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she’d massage the right words out of her brain.  She didn’t know how to tell him.  She didn’t even really know how to _start._   This was the problem with talking about things you _didn’t talk about_ : they were damned hard _to_ talk about.

“Shepard?”

Thena stopped rubbing at her forehead.  “It’s nothing.  It’s stupid.”

He frowned and shook his head, saying, “If it’s stupid it can’t be nothing, and if it’s not nothing, it’s not stupid.”

“Nice logic,” she muttered, shooting a halfhearted glare his way.  “And it _is_ nothing.  Or if it’s something, it’s done already.”  Garrus didn’t say anything, he only _watched_ her, waiting for her to explain.  “I… gave Allers the interview she wanted.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.  So… what’d she ask about?” he asked, the words coming out slowly, as if he were afraid of the answer she’d give. 

She let out a deep, long breath, then started walking — _walking,_ and certainly not _pacing_ — the length of the battery.  “The two years after I died wasn’t the only time I’ve… been off the grid.  She asked about it.  The other time.”

Garrus leaned against a wall of consoles and crossed his arms, eyes following her as she moved.  “And when was the other time?”

“When I was a kid.  After the raid.”

Garrus nodded once.  “All right, so what’d Allers ask?”

Thena’s steps slowed to a stop and she ran a hand over her face, keeping her eyes closed as she pinched the bridge of her nose.  “She asked about the two years after Mindoir.”

“And I’m guessing you didn’t want to tell her.”

Her hand fell away and she met Garrus’ eyes, trying not to feel as if doing so was an act of defiance.  But talking about the old days made old habits resurface with a vengeance.  Oh, they’d faded and twisted into new ones, but none of them never really left her.   “Didn’t want to, but…”

“You told her anyway.”  

Thena let her grimace answer for her.  Garrus nodded once, as if her expression was all the answer he’d needed.  Maybe it was.  “You want to talk about it to someone who doesn’t have a camera?”

Thena let out a deep breath and sunk down to sit on the short set of steps that led into the heart of the battery.  After a few heartbeats of time, Garrus sat next to her.  Not too close; he never sat _too_ close, as if he could sense just how much distance she needed at any given time.  Hell of a skill-set, especially now.

“I ran away,” she said, finally.

“…You ran away?” he echoed.  

   She took a breath, held it, and rubbed her hand over her face before letting the air in her lungs out in a rush.  When she spoke, the words were directed to her clasped hands, because it was just easier that way.  Her own hands wouldn’t judge her, wouldn’t ask uncomfortable questions, wouldn’t _pity_ her.  “I was sixteen, Garrus.  Sixteen, and my family was dead and my— everything I knew, gone.  _Everything._   Alliance forces picked me and a few other survivors up, brought us to the Citadel.  I remember sitting in some embassy office with this… this scratchy blanket they’d given me, wrapped around my shoulders.  There was blood under my nails and all I could smell was smoke.  And then I overheard some diplomat’s assistant’s assistant explain to an Alliance rep that I didn’t have any living kin on Earth or any of the colonies.  I heard them say the words _orphan_ and _foster care_ and I…”  She raised her gaze again, felt _defiant_ again, and said, “I got the hell out.”

Garrus digested this information silently, then gave a slow shake of his head.  “How the hell didn’t anyone find you?”

She let out a sharp but quiet breath of laughter.  “I went into the ducts.  You remember Mouse, right?”  At Garrus’ silent nod, she shrugged.  “That was me.  Maybe a little shorter, a little skinnier, but…  Me.”  Her gaze went back down to her hands.  “You know how you said once you were pretty sure your father would hate me?”

“Yeah.”

“Well.”  Thena tried — _tried_ — to keep her tone light.  “I can tell you with near certainty I think he _did._ ”  She looked askance at him.  “I… might’ve run afoul of C-Sec a few times.  Nothing serious.  Vagrancy, usually.  Petty theft if it had been long enough since our last decent meal.”

“Our?”

“I wasn’t the only kid living in the ducts.  Most of them were younger than I was.  I guess they sort of… gravitated to me.”

“You watched over them.”

She shook her head.  Leave it to Garrus to make it sound like she’d done something _noble._   “Kept them out of trouble.”

“And getting into it yourself instead.”  His soft exhale of a chuckle echoed pleasantly with subharmonics.  “Some things never change.”  He didn’t say anything else, and it wasn’t until the silence stretched out around them that she realized he was waiting for her to continue.

“There were always about four or five kids, not counting me.  We stuck together, scouted out the safest places to sleep.  Sometimes one would go missing and turn up a couple weeks later, mangled by an exhaust fan.  Sometimes they never turned up at all, and I thought — liked to think, anyway — they went home.  I tried a few times to get an actual job so we’d at least have money to eat, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot for me.  Usually I wound up running errands for… well, for people like Thane.  Some of the kids did odd jobs for the Shadow Broker — I tried to discourage that, since most of the ones who worked for him wound up vanishing altogether.”

“How’d you discourage them?”

A faint not-quite-smile touched her lips.  “… Told them the Shadow Broker ate little kids.”

Garrus didn’t laugh, but it was a very near thing, Thena thought.  The noise that _did_ escape him was somewhere between a snort and a cough.  “Did that work?” 

She sent him a sidelong glance, almost smiling at the memories being stirred up.  She’d pushed them back, held them down for so long, it was… _strange_ to talk about it now.  And yet, maybe not that strange that she was talking about it with Garrus.  “Alarmingly well,” she admitted.  “But… by the time I turned eighteen, it… was made clear to me that if I really wanted to help them, I had to leave.”

“And that’s when you joined the military.”

“It was… what I wanted to do,” she replied, nodding. “And it meant I could send them money — but more importantly… I wanted to… to _do_ something to make sure what had happened to me didn’t happen to anyone else.  I wanted to help by giving those kids a… a _safer_ galaxy to grow up in.”  Her laugh was bitter this time.  “Of course, I was all of eighteen at the time.  I think I can be forgiven for being naïve and idealistic.  So…I set up a mailbox for them.  There was a boy — Nevvar, he was the next oldest.  I gave him the mailbox passkey.  I… figured if I sent them credits they’d at least eat regularly.”

“Then what happened?”

“First bit of leave I got, I went to the Citadel.  Nevvar was gone.  No one even knew who he was; all the kids were different — I didn’t recognize a single one of them — and no one had collected any of the money I sent.  There was probably about two thousand credits in there, untouched.”  She released her hands and flexed her fingers before clasping them again hands tightly, until her knuckles turned white.  “That’s the bitch of it, Garrus.  Sometimes you _can’t_ make a difference, no matter how hard you try, no matter how badly you _want to_.”

“You keep trying.”

With a snort, Thena rolled her eyes.  “There’s something about the definition of insanity in there.”

“Well.  We all know you’re a little crazy, Shepard.  Some of us wouldn’t have it any other way.”  His arm went around her shoulders, and despite the weight of his armor, she moved closer, tucking herself against him.  “So, let me guess what happened next.  You didn’t want to tell Allers any of that, so you cut the interview short, and now she’s asking when you want to finish it?”

 _Leave it to Garrus_ , she thought, shaking her head.  “Yeah,” she admitted, and even to Thena’s own ears, the word sounded as if it was being pulled from her.  “It’s… it’s just so damn personal, for one.  For another — Garrus, I abandoned those kids.”

“What the hell else were you supposed to do?  You were trying to do what was best for them.”

“I still— I failed them.  I left and… I don’t have the first damned idea what happened to any of them.”

“Shepard…”

“And then there’s…”  Here she stopped, swallowed hard, let out a long breath.  Here was the more uncomfortable truth of the matter, the part of the equation that was even harder to admit, even to Garrus.  _Pride._ “The great Commander Shepard used to be a vagrant petty criminal duct rat.  I don’t see how that’ll help the war effort.  I don’t see how it’d help anything but Allers’ ratings,” she added bitterly.  “You know how many people in this galaxy would love to see me taken down a few pegs?  I want to be what I am, Garrus. Not what I _was._ ”

“That’s funny,” he said slowly, his expression maddeningly inscrutable, “because from where I’m sitting, what you _were_ was a kid who got dealt a crap hand and overcame adversity in spite of it.”

She stared at him then, realizing with the uncomfortable warmth of radiating shame that one of the reasons she hadn’t told Garrus about this was in part _because_ she’d crossed his father’s path more than once.  Enough times for him to learn her name, and it had been her impression even at the time that the senior Vakarian was not the type to forget details easily — or quickly.  

“Unless,” he drawled, turning his head and narrowing his eyes at her shrewdly, “you thought your, ah, criminal past and consequential run-ins with my dad might have put me off a little.”

That uncomfortable warmth doubled, maybe tripled, until her cheeks burned with it.  “You know what I said about you being a hell of a cop?” she muttered.

“Yeah?”

“I take it all back.”

“Come on, Shepard,” said Garrus, tightening his arm around her shoulders, giving them a squeeze.  “I thought you’d know me better than that by now.  Finding out you’d ever managed to piss off my dad _before_ becoming a Spectre only managed to make you even more attractive.”

Her reaction, so at odds with the discomfiture and shame swamping her moments before, took even Thena by surprise.  But still, she couldn’t quite help the helpless laugh that passed her lips as she shook her head at him, leaning into the subtle pressure as he kept his arm around her.  “Guess I didn’t realize being a former juvenile delinquent could’ve ever been considered a turn-on.”

“Trust me, Shepard,” he rumbled into her ear.  “There’s a whole lot more to it than that.  But being a thorn in the great Narius Vakarian’s side?  Kind of a plus.”

Now that the truth was out, secrets she’d kept so long dragged into the harsh light of day, all of Thena’s worries, all of the lingering fears she’d shoved so far beneath the surface that she could pretend they didn’t exist at all seemed… almost _foolish_ now.  She still wasn’t keen on telling Allers everything, but… maybe, _maybe_ Thena would give her a little more than she had.

Gradually, companionable silence settled over them, broken only when Thena asked, “So… what do we do now?”

“For starters, you have to figure out what and just how much you want Allers to include in that biography — no damn reason why you shouldn’t get a say in that.  Beyond that, we wait for Liara to narrow down our suspects if she can.  In the meantime, we can take a walk through the refugee area, see what we can find, learn if anyone saw anything strange.  C-Sec’s already been through asking questions, but C-Sec’s also stretched thin and the whole damn Citadel’s a mess, so they could’ve missed something. No matter what, you want to hold on to the element of surprise as long as you can, Shepard; if he’s looking for you, and finds out you know that, he may step things up.”

“He could hurt more people, you mean.”

“I mean he could decide he wants to hurt _you._ ”

 

###

 

Garrus hadn’t exactly _wondered_ why Shepard didn’t talk about her past.  He didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to know there had to be excellent reasons why it was a topic she never raised — it wasn’t a secret she’d grown up on Mindoir, but the finer details of her life were something he’d never asked about.  Mainly because he didn’t think it was any of his damned business.  Shepard had reasons, he believed in her reasons, and figured that, one day, if she ever wanted to _tell_ him, she would.  Particularly when it came to those two years between Mindoir and her enlistment in the military.

She’d told him about her family, once, about happier times, about her parents, her brothers, life on a quiet farming colony.  But even that night she’d told him — armed with sniper rifles and targets, both of them trying to outdo each other — he’d known there was more to it, more she was holding back.  And now that he knew, so many things about Shepard, so many of her quirks, her idiosyncrasies, made _sense,_ all the way down to her willingness to take risks, unorthodox risks, if it meant getting the outcome she was aiming for.

He understood her reticence when it came to discussing those years with anyone else — namely, Allers — but Garrus couldn’t help but feel Shepard’s fear of being reviled or shamed or somehow _rejected_ for her past was just that:  _fear._   He knew better than most that Thena Shepard was a harsh judge of herself, and far and away her own worst critic.  He also knew _he_ wasn’t going to be the one changing her mind anytime soon; he wondered — _hoped,_ really — laying her past out on the table would be enough to override the shame that had been building up for years.

The real mystery, the part that had taken him completely unawares, was his _father’s_ role in Shepard’s past.  He knew he bore a strong resemblance to the senior Vakarian — appearance-wise, at least — and it was unlikely she’d have forgotten any run-ins she might have had with his father.  _Especially_ if she’d been on the wrong end of his dad’s wrath.

 _And she_ still _let my ass on her ship.  Not sure I’ll ever understand that._

 

###

 

Being a Spectre meant a great many things throughout the galaxy, and most of the time, what it meant depended on who you asked.  To some, Spectres were something to fear, figures standing above the law who could abuse it if they saw fit.  For better or worse, Saren Arterius had done a great deal to perpetuate this perception.  There were times the mystique worked in Thena’s favor; upon learning who — and what — she was, witnesses or other people of interest snapped to attention, eager to help — eager to help _out of fear,_ but still: helpful.  At the other end of the spectrum were those in whom fear invoked terrified silence.  Fear they might say the wrong thing — or worse, the _right_ thing.  Some were impressed, who viewed Spectres as galactic heroes, and still others who thought the position was empty, that Spectres were nothing more than puppets the Council controlled.

As it happened, there was a perfect cross-section of the galactic community in the refugee camp.  It was a cross-section that provided very little useful information about what had happened to the dead girl. _Oh, very sad, the poor young woman,_ some said.  _Her name was Melinda — or was it Belinda?  I can’t remember, I’m sorry.  So many people, you know.  Too many names to remember.  She was supposed to be getting married next month, but the Reapers, they got her fiancé, the poor lamb._ Others were angry rather than sympathetic: _Goddamn C-Sec doesn’t give a damn about us down here; I bet they’re glad to see our numbers go down, even by one.  And what the hell are_ you _doing about it?  What’re you doing down here questioning_ us _?  Shouldn’t you be_ fighting _the damned things?  Isn’t that what you_ do _?_ And still others didn’t talk at all; they watched her and Garrus with wide, suspicious eyes, casually easing out of the way at the earliest opportunity.

“Well, that told us absolutely nothing,” muttered Thena, under her breath.  

But Garrus didn’t seem to agree.  “It told us why he’s targeting the refugees — they’re easy, and they’d probably be easy to manipulate, too.”

“How do you figure?”

He jerked a thumb behind them, indicating the refugees as he answered, “Overly emotional people — doesn’t matter the emotion, either — are always going to be easier to screw with than calm ones.”

“Easy pickins.”   

That was certainly the truth — there were too many stories about too many people who’d lost everything.  On one hand, it was hard to fully comprehend.  On the other, Thena knew — and she knew it better than most — the destruction the Reapers had caused, and how fast they were causing it.  She knew that hundreds of thousands — millions by this point — of lives had been changed.  The shockwave resounded through the entire galaxyShe knew that there were people who’d lost everything — and she still remembered how _that_ felt; shock and denial warring with too-vivid memories of events far too recent to be called _memories_ , replaying themselves behind closed eyelids, knowledge corroborated by blood and bruises and the scent of smoke clinging to hair and clothes.  She knew how her mind had struggled to process one simple fact: “Everything’s gone.”

But for all Thena could understand what so many of them had been through, even she had difficulty grasping how many had lived through so many separate tragedies.

As they made their way through the holding area, back to the elevators, a snatch of conversation made Thena freeze and turn around.  

A deep voice, heavy with turian subharmonics, said, “Your parents get here yet?” 

A young woman — a girl, really; she couldn’t have been any older than sixteen — was standing at a C-Sec kiosk, talking to the turian officer manning it.  Her parents had put her on a shuttle, likely knowing they’d never be able to follow (or, perhaps more tragically, _not_ knowing), leaving their daughter with nothing but her life and the faith that her parents — and at that age it was still easy to believe parents were infallible and indestructible — would find her.

“Nope,” the girl replied, then shrugged.  “It’s okay, I mean — they’ll get here.  They always keep their promises.  They… next shuttle was probably just late or something.  That’s all.”

The more Thena heard, the more she had her doubts.

When the girl wandered away, she approached the kiosk — Garrus seemed to know where Thena was headed before she did, and matched her stride for stride.

“Hell of a story,” she said to the officer.  “Poor kid.”

“You heard that?” he asked.  “Yeah.  I don’t… have the heart to tell her what’s probably the truth.  Not my place, anyway.  And who knows?  Maybe the kid’s parents _are_ still alive.”

“You talk with her a lot?” Garrus asked.  The officer shrugged.

“At least once a day.  Usually more.  She stops by here sometimes when I get on duty to see if a shuttle arrived during the overnight shift.”

As if she might have simply dozed through her parents’ arrival.

“Listen, Agent,” Garrus began, pitching his voice low and leaning on the kiosk counter, “you know what’s been going on around here.”  

He did not, she noticed, phrase it as a question.  The officer’s mandibles pressed close against his cheeks as his eyes went steely.  “Yeah.  I have. You don’t have to say anything.  I’m keeping an eye on her.  Already told her to let me know if anyone bothers her.”

“Good idea.”

“Get an ID on the bastard yet?”

Thena exchanged a look with Garrus before saying, “And how did you know we might have that information?”

The officer gave a short laugh.  “News traveled quickly through C-Sec before.  We’re at half strength now, so news just travels half as fast.  Still moves, though.”

“So what’re they saying?”

The agent lowered his voice.  “Starting to feel like we might actually catch the scumbag now.”  Before he could say anything more, a batarian refugee appeared at his elbow, effectively ending the conversation.  With a parting nod, Thena pushed away from the kiosk and they started for the elevator.

Once the doors closed, Garrus let out a deep breath and rubbed a hand over his fringe and down to the back of his neck.  “No pressure.  No pressure at all.”

They rode in contemplative silence to the docking bay, and continued slowly side by side to D24, and then onto the _Normandy_. Both were lost in their own respective reveries, though the weight of Thena’s thoughts felt heavier than usual.  

“Have you ever had to work anything like this before?” she asked as they reached her quarters, crossing to the couch and dropping down onto it before pulling off her boots.  Datapads still littered the nearby table and she picked one of them up, frowning at it without actually reading it, and setting it down again. 

“By ‘like this,’” Garrus said, leaning against the fishtank and crossing his arms, “do you mean a serial killer in general, or cases as obnoxiously clue-free as this one?”

“Either.  And you look like you’re dead on your feet.  Take off the armor and stay awhile.”  When he hesitated, she lifted both eyebrows at him.  “It’s not like I’ve never seen you out of your armor.”  She gave him an exhausted smile.  “And if I know you, your spurs have got to be killing you by now.”

“This was… not how I’d planned an evening in your quarters, Shepard,” he replied, but began unfastening his armor anyway, pulling it free piece by piece and setting it neatly on the low table in her sitting area.  Once he was free of the armor, clad in a dark blue base-layer, he sat next to her on the corner of the couch.  “And to answer your question, no to the first, yes to the second.  Well… there was that elcor, but I wasn’t the lead investigator on that case.”

“Did you solve them?”

“Of course I did.”  He shot her a sidelong glance.  “Hell of a time to start checking my resume.”  

“It’s nothing like that.  I’m just…”

“Frustrated.  I know.”  He ran a hand up her back, stopping to rub at some of the tighter, more persistent knots. “Listen, Shepard.  It’s been a long day — but it’s only been _one day._   Let’s see if we can get some sleep.”

She turned her head, though it took effort to look at him.  “I’m used to things moving slowly when it means having to talk to politicians or follow diplomatic protocol.”

“Or convincing a whole damn galaxy that the Reapers weren’t as imaginary as everyone wanted to believe?”

She nodded.  “But this… is different.  This is finding _one guy_ who should not be having as easy a time as he seems to be, kidnapping, torturing, and murdering people.  It’s a damn needle in a haystack, Garrus.”

“Turians aren’t without idioms either, Shepard.  They might not be as… vivid as human idioms, but we’ve got them.”

“Is there one that might apply here?”

“ _You’ll always know a klixen by its breath_.”  At her expression — which she was certain was puzzled — Garrus went on to explain, “In the early days of the war against the krogan, the krogan used Tuchanka’s… natural wonders against turian troops.  Whole platoons got wiped out because they’d unwittingly stepped into — been led into — a klixen nest.”

“Garrus.  Klixen breathe _fire_.”

“Right.  Didn’t take long for turian soldiers to figure out that the klixen-infested caves were usually the ones all blackened up.  Long story short: even the deadliest foe can’t hide forever, Shepard.”

She couldn’t disagree with that logic; in fact, most turian logic was pretty sound — militarily speaking, anyway.  Feet free from her boots, she stood up and stretched.  This wasn’t how _she’d_ expected spending the evening in her quarters, either, but there was something relaxing, _comforting_ about being here with him like this, even if events had put the kibosh on anything _more_ developing tonight.  Socks made her footfalls silent as she crossed to her personal terminal.  She peered through the display case, watching Garrus a moment; he looked relaxed, almost _serene._   The top of the Presidium felt miles away just then, and for a moment their… well, yes, she supposed it had been a date, felt very far away indeed.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Thena asked, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth, heat flooded her cheeks.  “I, uh.  I mean — I didn’t…  I know today’s been…”  Difficult?  Rocky? “… _Unpredictable_.  But…” She cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter, eyes meeting his steadily across the room, before saying, “If I’m going to be a one-turian woman, I’d like the turian in question to be hanging around.”  He cocked his head at her and exhaled that short laugh she knew by heart.  “And I wouldn’t say no to the company,” she said with a shrug.

“I’m kind of relieved you’re admitting to wanting any, Shepard.”  His mandibles flexed in an approximation of a grin.  “Yeah.  I’ll stay, if that’s what you want.”

So maybe picking up where they left off — more or less — wouldn’t be too difficult after all.  She felt herself smiling as she looked at the messages lining up on her terminal.  One in particular caught her attention immediately.

“Huh.  I’ll be damned.”

Garrus stood up and stretched, hands linked his above his head as he arched back and yawned.  “What’s up?”

She glanced up at him, then back to the terminal screen.  “Jack’s on leave — she’s on the Citadel.  Wants to meet up for drinks.”

“I’m guessing you’re gonna want to bring her in on this.”

“I don’t really see how I _can’t._ ”

 

###


	5. Day Two

When Thena opened her eyes, the first thing she realized was that she felt _rested._   The second thing she realized was that she hadn’t had that damned dream — she hadn’t dreamt at all, which was strange but not unwelcome.  The third thing she realized was there was a turian spur poking her calf.  She rolled over to curl against warm plates, and her smile was lazy but immediate as her skin brushed against the sueded surface.

No, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind _at all_ when they’d talked about returning to her quarters… had it only been yesterday?  

Garrus lay on his side, still wearing the bottom half of his base layer, the entire expanse of his back exposed to her.  She traced the plates with the pads of her fingertips, the texture both familiar and welcome.  It felt like a lifetime since she’d been with him like this — it had only been months, true, but hectic, difficult, dangerous months.  While she’d been a… _guest_ of the Alliance, she’d lain in bed, imagining moments like this one, trying to recall the exact feel of Garrus’ weight sinking into the mattress, the precise texture of his plates under her fingertips, the slow sound of his breathing.  

“I’m still not ticklish,” came Garrus’ sleepy mutter as he rolled over to face her.  “And you still wake up too damn early.”

“Good morning.”

“Is it?” he asked, reaching out to smooth down hair she knew was tousled.  “How’d you sleep?”

“I slept,” she replied, tipping her head against his hand.  “That’s more than I can say for other nights.”

“Sleep is good, so I hear.  Maybe we need to make a habit of this.”

She grasped his hand and kissed the palm, rolling onto her side.  “Maybe.  Maybe we need to start making a habit of other things, once everything calms down.”   Just lying here with him, warm plates against her skin, his free hand resting at the dip in her waist, one digit rubbing a circle against her skin through the t-shirt she wore, was both a cherished gift, and the incentive to _keep going_.  No, she didn’t know how things would turn out once the war was over, but she was going to _work,_ damn it, and do all that she could, _whatever_ she could.  If there was a life, a place for her on the other side of all of this, she would be there for it.

“I can’t find much wrong with a proposition like that,” he replied, before she could talk herself out of what she’d just said.  Then he kissed her lightly and pulled away, sitting up and pulling the top half of his base layer back on.  “What do you say we get cleaned up, find something to eat, and find out if Bailey’s tech guys learned anything good from the security vids?” he asked.

She pushed to her feet and stretched, noting how Garrus’ eyes went to her bare legs.  “I’d like to see what kind of progress Liara’s made, too,” she said.

With what looked like a fair bit of effort, Garrus pulled his gaze from her legs to look up into her face.  “What time are you meeting Jack?”

“Don’t know yet,” she answered with a shrug, watching as he began putting his armor back on.  “I doubt it’s going to matter.”

“I don’t know — she’s a teacher now.  Isn’t she supposed to be respectable or something?  I mean, what would the children think if they knew she was knocking back drinks at Purgatory before lunch?”  They walked together to the other side of the room, lingering by the door, and Garrus tilted his head a bit and looked down at her.  “Shepard.  The bar.  Purgatory.”

“I know,” she replied with a nod.  “That’s occurred to me, too.  Hell of a coincidence.”

“And you know how much stock I put in coincidence.”  

She did know.  And the answer was _not much._ “So we won’t rule it out as a potential location of interest.”

Garrus’ sudden grin came with a short chuckle.  “Starting to sound a little like a cop yourself, Shepard.”

Thena watched as Garrus started for the elevator.  Her only regret was that he was _leaving_ to shower — but no… that was too much, too fast.  Soon.  Not now, but soon.  “Your good influence, I’m _sure,_ ” she replied to his retreating back.

“Garrus Vakarian, a good influence?” he shot back over his shoulder.  “The things you say when I’m _not_ recording, Shepard.”

 _When he’s_ not _recording?_ “Wait—” she called out sharply, stepping into the hallway, her t-shirt barely brushing the tops of her thighs.  “When _have_ you recorded—”

But the doors were already closing behind him.  “ _Elevator_ , Shepard.  Gotta go.  See you down in the mess.”

 

###

 

As it happened, Liara found them first.  They’d just finished their meal in the mess hall when Liara’s door opened and she came striding out, stopping short and making no effort to mask her surprise when she saw them.

“I was just coming to see you,” she said, glancing from one to the other.  Liara didn’t look pleased, which could have meant she found something — or could have meant she’d found nothing at all.

“What’ve you got?” Thena asked, pushing away from the table and disposing of her tray as Garrus did the same.

Liara led the way to the elevator sending them back upstairs. “A lot.  More than I thought I’d find, to be honest.”

Garrus nodded at the datapad she carried.  “I’m guessing you were able to narrow down our list a little?”  Liara’s only reply was a grim nod.  “A lot, then?”  Garrus prompted.

“You’ll see,” she answered, though her tone implied neither of them would like what she had to show them.

As the three of them walked into Thena’s quarters, Liara synced the data on her pad to both their omni-tools and the datapads holding Bailey’s case notes.

Thena was the first to open the file on the pad, not sitting down, but rather pacing the length of her quarters as she read.  Meanwhile, Garrus pulled out the omni-tool’s interface and read, quietly. “Tell me what I’m looking at, Liara — and how the hell did you get this info so fast?” she asked

“Shepard.  I’m the—”

“Yeah, I know.  Shadow Broker.  Still, this is a hell of a turnaround time, even for the best damned information broker in the galaxy.”

She sighed.  “I believed time was of the essence.  I… have a feeling I’m right.  As I said before, the asari escapee was easy to eliminate from your list.  The batarians, less so; two of them — brothers Ekal and Hotak Kal’dah — returned to…” Liara’s blue eyes flicked up to Thena and down again.  “The batarian brothers returned to their home on Ectah.”  Liara didn’t have to elaborate, and so she didn’t.  “Another became… rather infamous for leaving gambling debts unpaid.  Several asari lenders were interested in his whereabouts and came to me — I found him on Omega, running up more debts.”

“I’m sure Aria loved that,” murmured Garrus.

“You’re right.  She had him killed even before my representative was able to reach Omega.”

“That takes care of three batarians.  So what about the humans?”  Thena scrolled through the text, eyes scanning the words.

“One of the escapees, Garrett Deng, boarded a shuttle to a refugee installation called ‘Sanctuary’ a few weeks ago.  There’s been no indication he’s left that location.”

“That leaves three more,” Thena muttered, frowning harder as she read.

“I know.  Jeremy William Delaporte, Robert Anson Baptiste, and Basile Andrew O’Brien.  Their locations have been harder to pin down.  Feron may have more for me in a few hours on at least one of the leads, but these men have been keeping a low profile through the war.  They don’t seem to stay in one place for long.”

“Planet hopping,” Garrus supplied with a nod.  “They probably figure somebody’s still after them.”

“Two of them are planet-hopping,” Thena corrected him.  “One of them’s killing people on the Citadel.”

He nodded, reading the datapad.  “We just have to figure out who’s been doing what.”

There were holos of the escapees — images that looked like they’d been captured upon their incarceration.  Only one was particularly remarkable looking.  Baptiste exuded malice:  gaunt and bald, with a leathery, creased face set into a permanent scowl.  His eyes were narrow and eerily pale, and there was an intricate tattoo covering the left half of his face in what looked like black flames.  The other two were ordinary in comparison, which was almost worse.  Both clean-cut and brunette, though one had lighter brown hair than the other.  There were no scars, no identifying details.  They were simply… men, the types of which no one would look twice at.  It was hard to tell from the holo, but the record claimed the fairer-haired one — Delaporte — had hazel eyes, while the darker-haired escapee — O’Brien — had green.  Both men had bland faces — O’Brien was slightly more grizzled-looking, slightly older-looking; Delaporte’s features were smoother, younger.  She checked the file again; both men were the same age, give or take a few months, and both were at least five years younger than she was.

“Tell me about these guys,” Thena said.  “What were they in for, what were their histories, their prison behavior records — anything.”

“Those parts were easy to find,” Liara said.  Thena’s screen flashed as three biography files opened.  “I found family histories, court records, even a few previously-sealed files.”

“Some of our guys were in juvie, huh?” asked Thena, eyes scanning the doc.

“Juvenile detention centers?  Yes.  Two of them, in fact.”

“Let’s flag those two,” Garrus said.      

“The strange thing is,” Liara said, “several of the files I looked into — including some of the sealed ones — had been tampered with before I got to them.”

“Tampered with?” Garrus asked.  “You mean they’d been hacked?”  At Liara’s nod, he frowned.  “He can’t know we’re on to him already, can he?”

“How had they been tampered with?” Thena asked.

“To answer Garrus’ question, I doubt it.  It appears the files had been tampered with some weeks ago.  The person responsible was… very good at covering his tracks.  I’m not sure yet what was altered, only that some things were.  While it’s possible the hacker was in fact Billy—”

“I’d say we could move past _possible_ and into _probable_ ,” Garrus broke in, darkly.  

Liara didn’t look like she disagreed as she added, “We cannot be _sure_ it’s him.  Particularly since a number of files were accessed.”

Thena’s frown deepened.  “Maybe he — assuming it was Billy — wanted to cast suspicion on other escapees?  He had to be aware that his actions would get the attention of the authorities.”

Garrus looked up then, eyes sharp.  “Why?  Who else would possibly be able to put together that this guy was one of the _Purgatory_ escapees?  Who, Shepard, other than you?”

Liara blinked once, then twice before looking up at Garrus and narrowing her eyes.  “Do you suspect that Billy has been planning this for that long?”

Garrus checked his omni-tool before replying.  “When did you say the files were accessed?”  As Liara gave him the full date, he scrolled through the file Bailey had sent them.  “Lines up with just before the first victim was discovered — back when he was spelling her name wrong.”

“So not only is Billy a murderer, he’s a tech-head, too?”

“It’s starting to look like that might be the case,” Liara replied, her features pulling into a frown as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Garrus was quiet, but it didn’t take a great deal to tell he was displeased with the course events were taking.  Thena couldn’t blame him.  _If Billy started covering his own tracks when he first reached the Citadel—_

Her thoughts slammed to a sudden stop.  “Wait.  You said he accessed those files just before the first victim was discovered?” she asked Liara.  “That would mean he was _on the Citadel_ when he accessed them.”

“Seems like the sort of thing we ought to let Bailey know,” said Garrus.  “Could’ve been using a public terminal.”

Thena nodded.  “Liara, head down to C-Sec, and let Bailey know about this little wrinkle.”  She trusted Liara better than she trusted herself to explain the intricacies of a high-end hack job, should Bailey want more of an explanation.

“Of course, Shepard.”

“And if there’s anything you can do to help his tech guys, do it.  They’re short-staffed as hell right now.”

Liara looked suddenly thoughtful.  “I have a few things in my quarters that might help them.  I’ll let you know how it goes.”  With another nod to both of them, Liara left.

“Garrus, I want you to get Cortez and Vega involved — full disclosure.  We need extra eyes in the refugee area soon as possible.”

“And then?”

“That depends on how things go with Jack.”

Garrus didn’t reply right away, but the hesitation turned into a silence that seemed to blossom and fill the room.  

Finally:  “I really don’t like this, Shepard.”

“I’m not too crazy about it myself.”

“If it was Billy who hacked those files, then not only did he know you’d come looking for him, he knew _where_ _you’d start_.  You noticed we couldn’t find any mention of Billy’s MO in any of the files EDI got for us?”

“I know.  He could’ve removed any mention of them himself.  Which means we haven’t made as much progress as we think we have.  _Or_ we could still be perfectly on track.”  She rubbed hard at her forehead, fingertips pressing against the wrinkle between her brows.  “I guess I should just be thankful Reapers don’t pull crap like this.”

“Kind of hard to cover your tracks when you’re decimating the whole damn universe.”

“I’m trying to be an optimist here, Garrus,” she said, peering at him through her fingers.  “Work with me.”

He let out a short bark of a chuckle and put an arm around her shoulders, squeezing.  “Optimism.  Right.  I almost didn’t recognize it on you.”  Another squeeze, this one gentler.  “We’ll figure it out, Shepard.  We always do.  You’ve got good people on your squad working for you.”

“Correction: I’ve got the _best damn people_ on my squad working _with_ me.”

“I figured I should at least try for modesty, since I’m one of those people.”  

 

###

 

Purgatory pulsed with rhythmic thumping Thena wasn’t sure she’d ever call _music_.  It was a deep, soul-pounding bass that reverberated through her body, shuddering down the marrow in her bones, all the way to her boots.  If nothing else, it made people move — then they drank, then moved some more.  Despite the fact it was the middle of the day, her body had grown used to the time schedule they kept on the _Normandy_ , where in the middle of space, night was perpetual.  Here, the Citadel kept its own schedule, despite the endless black she knew extended beyond the Citadel’s illusion of sunlight.  Her body told her it was just around lunch.  The Citadel told her it didn’t give a damn about her circadian rhythms.

Jack was easy to spot as always, but instead of throwing herself into the beat on the dance floor, or knocking back shots at the bar, she sat… comparatively sedately, at a small table, reading a datapad.  Thena noted with no small bit of amusement that the drink in front of her looked suspiciously like sparkling water.  She slid into the other seat at the small table and Jack looked up, but whatever greeting she had ready for Thena died on her lips.

“You look like shit, Shepard.”

“Thanks a lot,” Thena replied dryly, sliding into the vacant chair next to her.  She wasn’t sure what that said about the fact that she’d actually woken up feeling _rested_ , except that she probably looked a whole lot worse before a decent night’s sleep.

“No problem,” Jack said, heedless as ever of her sarcasm.  “So what’s up?  ‘Cause I’m pretty sure something is.  I mean, _other_ than Reapers fucking up the galaxy and the Illusive Man being King Douchebag and sending Cerberus to fuck up the Citadel.  So what is it?”

“When the hell did you get so observant?”

“Hell, Shepard.”  Jack leaned back in her chair, tipping it back until it balanced precariously on two legs.  “I’ve always _been_ observant.  Most of the time I just never gave a shit.”

She heard what Jack wasn’t _quite_ saying out loud — how much teaching for Grissom Academy had had an effect on her.  And even Thena had been surprised to find Jack in charge of a passel of teenagers, but her surprise hadn’t lasted long.  Jack commanded respect and didn’t put up with anyone’s bullshit.  And she _cared._ Oh, on the surface Jack was all “I don’t give a shit,” but when it came down to it, when things _really_ got down to the wire, Jack not only gave a shit, she’d give _everything_ to make sure things worked out all right.  “Okay, fair enough.”

“—I mean, just as long as it’s not some touchy-feely shit going on between you and Garrus, you can tell me anything.”

“No, it’s nothing—” she nearly said, _It’s nothing personal_ , but it was.  It was _deeply_ personal.  Someone was killing people and carving her name into their bodies.  Personal?  Hell, yes it was.  “It’s nothing like that,” she finished.

Jack’s gaze was a steady one, and she said nothing for nearly a full minute, narrowing her eyes shrewdly before arching a dark eyebrow at Thena.  “Whatever it is, it’s gotta be fucking serious if you couldn’t manage some smartass Girl Scout comeback.”

There was no point in deflecting, no point in trying to pretend Thena didn’t have her own reasons for meeting with Jack.  “Yeah,” she acknowledged.  “Yeah, it’s serious.  But not here. I want to talk somewhere private.”

“Gotcha.  More talking, less yelling.”  Jack got up and began gathering her things, and they were finally leaving Purgatory’s pounding beat behind them.  Outside it seemed positively _silent,_ the noise from within so muted that Thena’s ears seemed to pop with the change.  Halfway to the elevator, her comm chirped.

Waiting for the elevator to open, she answered.  “Shepard here.  Go ahead.”

“Commander?”  It was Traynor.  “Commander Bailey’s sent word he needs to see you.  It’s urgent.”

Every nerve ending went on alert.  She was waiting to hear about any number of things, but a call from Bailey was low on the list — she wouldn’t have expected him to have anything of note for her to work with yet.  “Developments?” she asked.

“I would assume so, ma’am.  He’s asked you to meet him in the morgue.”

“Right.  Tell Garrus to meet us down there, and let Bailey know I’m on my way.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

“Shepard out.”

“The _morgue_?” Jack asked, taking no pains whatever to hide her surprise.  “Are you _shitting_ me?”  

The elevator doors shut, providing much-needed privacy for the moment.  Thena turned to Jack, who was looking equal parts impatient and expectant, and launched into the story — the whole story, leaving nothing out.

“Wait,” she said, holding her hands up as if to ward off Thena’s words through force alone.  “Hold the hell on.  Me?  He fucking made her look like _me_?”  Jack’s hands curled into fists as she dropped them by her side, as if to punctuate her statement.  “And then the fucking prick knifed your _name_ into her?”

Thena let out a deep breath and leaned against the wall.  Leave it to Jack to _show_ the outrage that had been steadily building in Thena since the day before.  She almost envied Jack that little freedom — Thena, however, found herself clamping down on her anger, _feeling_ it, certainly, but never acting on it, never acting _out._   Besides, who the hell did she have to act out _at?_   Garrus?  Liara?  Bailey?  They were all on the same side.  Jack’s visceral anger, though… Thena knew where she was coming from, and sure as hell wasn’t going to censure the other woman for it.

The elevator came to a stop, and an electronic voice was encouraging them to _please depart for the morgue level_.  “Evidently not everyone used their freedom to save the galaxy and influence future generations.”

“Please, Shepard,” Jack snapped.  “I teach them how not to get their asses kicked.  I don’t…”  She turned and ran a hand over her head; when her fingers met hair, she seemed almost surprised at its presence.  “Fuck.  _Fuck._ ”  

Jack shook her head and turned away slightly; Thena saw the tension tightening the other woman’s shoulders and stiffening her spine, but she knew better than to try and offer comfort.  After nearly a minute, Jack shook her head and straightened, pushing her shoulders back, though she still stared at the elevator wall.  “You know, for a long time I believed I was the baddest thing in that prison.  And I was _proud_ of it.  I _wanted_ to be the worst thing any of them had ever seen.”

She remembered Jack, a little younger, a little brasher, a little rougher around the edges, rattling off her list of transgressions like badges of honor.

“Jack…”

“Don’t, Shepard.  I know I’ve done some bad shit.  Don’t sugar-coat it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” replied Thena, opening the elevator doors.  “But everyone’s allowed to change if they want to.  Maybe you wanted to.  Maybe you _had_ to want to.”

She snorted.  “And this asshole didn’t.”

“That’s my guess.”  Thena headed off the lift into the blinding white corridor.

“Shepard.”

She stopped, looking back at Jack over her shoulder.  “Yeah?”

Everything about Jack’s posture was guarded, protective.  Her arms were crossed over her chest, clamped tight against herself as she looked down, scowling off into the mid-distance.  “Maybe… maybe someone gave me a reason to change.”

“Maybe someone did,” she replied.  “Come on,” she added, nodding in the direction of the hall.  “Bailey’s waiting.”

The man in question was, as Thena suspected, waiting for them in the viewing bay where she and Garrus had first seen Billy’s victims.  

And now there was another.

His latest, from the looks of it, hadn’t been placed in a refrigeration pod yet — a bulky, covered figure lay on a steel table nearby.  “Hey, Shepard, you just missed Sarik.  He’s up in his lab running a few tests on some scans he took off the victim’s armor,” said Bailey, glancing briefly at Jack.  Thena saw the slight stutter in his reaction and wondered if it had less to do with Jack herself and more with the obvious resemblance to the dead girl they’d found yesterday.

“Commander Bailey, let me introduce Jack — a member of my team.  She was there when we took down the Collector ship.”

Jack shot her a _look_.  “I think he’d be more interested to know it was my ass you scuttled off the _Purgatory_.”

“I was getting to that.”

Bailey nodded a greeting.  “Either way, good to meet ya.  Shepard seems to think you might be able to give us a little insight on this son of a bitch?”

“Not sure about that.  Spent most of my time in cryo.  But I’ll take a look.”  She glanced briefly at Thena before addressing Bailey.  “Shepard told me about the girl you found yesterday.”  At Bailey’s nod, she added, “I want to see her.”

Taking a deep breath in and letting it out through his teeth, Bailey turned to the control console.  “All right.”

Within moments, a second pod joined the first.  Thena stood across from Jack, waiting as the containment unit slid slowly open.  Of all the reactions she might have expected from her old squad member — blazing anger, furious indignation, outright disgust — Jack’s reaction was the last thing Thena had anticipated.  Jack went _quiet_.  Her face drained of color before the blood rushed back, turning her flushed.  Her body was entirely rigid.  But more than anything, she was eerily, eerily _quiet._

“Jack?”

“I know her,” she gritted out in disbelief, hands gripping the table.  “I fucking _know her._ ”

Thena and Bailey exchanged a look.  “Her biotag’s been fried.  We haven’t been able to get a solid ID on—”

“Mel.  She’s— her name’s—”  Jack gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, giving herself a visible shake and then collecting herself before trying again.  “Melinda Turner.  She’s— she was.  She _was_ a biochem teacher at Grissom.  Got evac’d with the first wave of kids off the school.”

“I’m sorry,” said Thena.  But Jack just looked up, and now there _was_ righteous fury blazing in her dark eyes.

“ _Fuck_ sorry.  We’re finding this sick motherfucker, and we’re taking him _down_ , Shepard.”

“I’m not gonna pretend I’m sorry to hear that,” Bailey intoned.  After pressing a few buttons, the lid to the unity holding what remained of Melinda Turner slid shut with a hiss.  He shot Thena an inscrutable look as he glanced from the body on the table back to her again.  “Cleaning crew found this poor bastard this morning,” he said, pulling the cover away.

“This morning?  He’s killing them that fast?” she asked, joining Bailey.  “He must have somewhere he’s keeping—”  But Thena’s words dropped off into silence when she took in the victim’s appearance.  

He was turian.  

She saw the blue armor first, though, saw the gold image — she’d always _thought_ it was an eagle, at least, but had never thought to ask what the emblem actually _was_ — stenciled across the arm.  The jagged hole in the armor’s cowl brought to mind the stench of smoke and fire and burning plates, and even then Thena had to breathe in the medicinal scent of antiseptic to clear the memory from her mind.  There was blue paint smeared across his face, the right side of which was ruined, as if someone had taken sandpaper to it.  Panic made her stomach drop, and for one wild, confusing moment, she couldn’t remember when she’d last seen Garrus and she couldn’t tell if her certainty that _this wasn’t him_ was genuine, or grief-stricken denial.

 _Stop,_ she told herself. _Breathe.  Now, look._

She forced her eyes to the turian’s face.  His plates were darker than Garrus’ and beneath the blue paint — messily applied, too, she noted — this turian’s clan markings were green.  Not Garrus, then.  _Not_ Garrus.

“What the hell is this?” she breathed when she could find her voice again.

Bailey cleared his throat.  “Cleaning crew at the Dark Star found the victim in one of the back rooms couple hours ago.”

Suddenly Jack was by her side and hissed out a swear.  “How the fuck did he do this?”

“Sarik says his neck’s broken.  Makes sense.  Harder to just strangle a turian, especially if you’re human.”

“Turians aren’t known for being easy to kill.” Garrus’ voice came from the doorway.  He sounded a little harried, as if he’d rushed to meet her, and not a little confused, but it was him, and the familiar rumble of his voice made Thena’s fists unclench.  She turned sharply in time to see him stride into the morgue; just the sight of him was so damned _welcome_ that it wasn’t until she exhaled that Thena realized she’d been holding her breath at all.  “And I’m… pretty sure I’m not going to like why you’re all looking at me that way,” he added, tension gathering in his voice and resonating in his subharmonics as he crossed the room to view the victim.

Garrus’ appeared momentarily surprised at the turian’s appearance, but seemed to shake it off — with some effort — turning instead to Bailey, asking, “Any idea who he was?”

“Biotag’s fried like the last one.”

“And where’d you find him?” Garrus asked, circling the table warily, narrowing his eyes, as if trying to place the victim.

“Back storage area at the Dark Star.”

He came to a stop on Thena’s other side, opposite Jack and frowned down at the dead turian.  “Billy seems to be moving beyond the refugee camp.”

“Sure as hell looks like it,” Bailey grumbled, sounding not the least bit pleased about that development.  “Once we get an ID on this guy, we’ll know if he’s branching out with his prey.”

“Turian camp in the holding area’s pretty tight.  I’ll see if anyone’s missing,” offered Garrus.  “Better question is how he’s getting access to places like the Dark Star.  Is this one… marked up like the others?”

Bailey gave a small shrug.  “Don’t know yet.  Sarik wanted to run some tests on the armor before we remove it.  See what he used to make that hole.  My guess? He probably is.  You, ah, want me to give you a yell when he removes the armor?”  

Garrus shot Thena a quick glance.  “Sure.  If he doesn’t want us taking up his time, he can send us some holos of what he finds.”

Nodding, Bailey covered the body again.  “So, your friend Doctor T’Soni showed me some of what she found.  That’s a hell of a new wrinkle — if Billy can alter sealed records, fooling some low-level security tech to unlock a storage room door’s probably kid’s stuff.  Asked her if she’d mind helping my tech guys with some of the security comm footage.  Last I heard, we should have some usable footage in a few hours.”

“What’s been the problem with the footage?” Garrus asked.  Bailey gave a snort.

“I’d figured it was just us being understaffed.  Now I’m starting to wonder if Billy wasn’t screwing things up from the start.”

“Not hard to scramble a signal for security feeds,” Jack said with a shrug.  “Don’t know where he’d get his hands on that kind of tech, though.  Not unless he picked it up here.”

As they all left the viewing bay, Thena felt her head clear.  She’d been unprepared for that sight, though where shock was fading, it was quickly being replaced with anger.  At least that was a familiar emotion.  It was a damn sight better than the dizzying, sickening combination of confusion and grief and shock and whatever the hell else had shot through her mind at something even faster than FTL speed.  “Probably the same place he picked up the equipment he’s using to strip the biotags.  I just don’t know how he’s actually getting it.”

“Melinda Turner was the first victim to have her biotag stripped, right?” Garrus asked Bailey.  When the commander nodded, he looked back at Thena.  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he managed something like that right after Cerberus raids the station.  He could’ve stolen the tech from anywhere on the Citadel — even C-Sec storage.  As to the rest of it…”

Jack scowled, then let out a deep breath.  “He’s probably found somewhere to work.  Somewhere quiet.  Probably pretty well insulated.  He’s not living with the refugees anymore, I’d bet anything.  Or if he is, he’s being cagey about it.  There’s a lot of people down there.  He may be splitting his time.  It’d be more helpful if we knew what he looks like, but if he’s fu— screwed up his file like I’m hearing, he’s probably been planning this and figured from the start someone—” Here, Jack sent Thena a pointed look “—would be going after him.  He’s got us at a disadvantage.”

“Then let’s think about where he could do… this,” Thena replied, gesturing behind her, where the victims had been.  “What would he need?”

“Space.  Lots of it.”  Jack turned to Bailey, addressing him.  “Is he killing them one at a time, or is he letting them stack up?”

“Victim before this one?  ME’s saying he held on to her for a few days.  She’d been dead about six hours by the time she was found.  From the sounds of things, he didn’t take near as much time on this one.”

“He knows you’re watching, Shepard,” Jack said, turning to look at her.  “If he was trying to get your attention before, sounds like he’s stepping up his game now.  Probably gonna start working faster.”

“All right.  Let’s assume he’s got my attention.”

“And he _knows_ he’s got it,” replied Jack.

“But why make his victims look like _that_?” She looked to Garrus and then to Jack.  “Neither of you _look_ like that anymore.  And _haven’t_ looked like that since—”

Garrus broke in.  “Since we sprung Jack off the _Purgatory_.”  

Jack looked between them both.  “Huh.  And you two were the ones who did it.  You bring anyone else?”

“Kasumi,” Thena answered automatically. “But she stayed cloaked the whole time, once things went pear-shaped.”

“So Billy probably wouldn’t have noticed her.  Not like he noticed us, anyway,” replied Garrus, who then went silent a moment, mandibles tightening and browplates drawing together.  “Not sure I like where the logical conclusion is leading me here, Shepard. If he’s trying to recreate the squad you brought onto the _Purgatory_ …”

“The message did say he’d be coming for you, Commander.”

Before Thena could reply, Jack let out a derisive snort.  “This asshole thinks he’s gonna take down Shepard?  Shepard, who killed a fucking thresher maw?  Shepard, who took down the Collectors?  You’re shitting me, right?”

“I did have help, Jack,” Thena dryly reminded her.  “It’s not like I faced down the maw _mano a mano_ , with nothing but a spoon.” 

Jack just snorted and shook her head in evident disgust, her ponytail bouncing incongruously.  “He’s still an idiot if he thinks he’s gonna take you down.”

“That doesn’t mean we need to sit around and wait for him to _try,_ ” Garrus argued.

“Assuming he _does_ think he can take me down, and assuming I _am_ actually the next one on his list, there’s no saying we can’t lure him out.”

“Are you _nuts_?”

 Thena turned to glare at Garrus — _and_ his outburst.  “How the hell else are we going to catch him?”

He turned midstride and stopped in front of her with a glare that turned his eyes just north of icy.  “We look at the security vids, Shepard.  We try to get a positive ID.  We put people in the refugee camp _like we planned_.  You want to find him before he kills someone else — I get that.  We all do.”  He paused, and Thena saw there was a great deal he _wasn’t_ saying just then, which she’d no doubt hear about later.  “Sometimes you’ve _gotta_ do things by the book, Shepard.  This is one of those times.”

He knew, and she could _see_ he knew, especially right now, _especially_ the way he held her gaze with his own steady one, how much the turian victim had rattled her.  And she, being herself, had compensated for her horror with anger.  

 _Don’t run off half-cocked_ , his expression said.

She drew in a deep breath and let it out again.  He was right, and she knew it; she just hated knowing _something_ was coming, but not having the first damned idea what it could be.  And that was something she had a feeling Garrus knew.  “All right.  If Liara’s still working with the techs, let’s get a few things into motion so we’re ready once we have a positive ID.  Even if Billy did alter the _Purgatory’s_ files, and we still don’t know what he _changed_ — the security vids should help us get a positive ID.”  Garrus nodded, evidently relieved she’d reined in her urge to shoot first, ask questions later.  “Bailey,” she said, turning to the commander, “have you got somewhere we can reconvene?  I want to make sure everyone’s on the same page regarding our intel so we’re ready if and when those security vids show us anything useful.”

“Got a conference room in the embassy offices you can use.  Sound proof, and what with the heightened paranoia around here since Udina, swept for bugs daily.”

“Sounds just about perfect. Lead the way.”


	6. Day Two

 

Garrus looked around the room.  It had taken a few hours to organize a confab like this on the fly — which gave Doc Sarik time to examine the turian’s body and conclude his tests on the armor — but conference room Bailey had set them up in was more than adequate, with a large table complete with a holoprojector  and more than enough room to lay out what information they’d gathered and learned, even over such a short time.  And there, front and center, was Shepard, right where she belonged.  She always seemed… at ease in front of crowds, though he’d known her long enough to know that hadn’t always been the case.  He could still remember the early days, when she’d say a few words before a mission — short, brusque, to the point.  Then, somewhere along the line, she got more comfortable with it.  Comfortable enough to not take the Council’s crap, at least.  And after she got comfortable with speaking, well, even on a bad day, Shepard could be damned inspiring.

But right now she wasn’t giving a pep talk, or a pre-battle “kick ass and take names” kind of speech.  Now she looked grim with a healthy side of _pissed off_ , and if her eyes kept darting to him, at least he knew there was a good reason for it.

If he were going to be honest with himself, seeing someone _made up_ to look like him, seeing what amounted to his own damn likeness in a morgue wasn’t high on a list of things he’d ever like to see repeated.  It’d been unnerving as hell — unnerving as hell and _still_ didn’t touch any of the shadows he’d seen lurking in Shepard’s expression when he walked into the room. Given the circumstances, he was hardly surprised she’d leapt into action mode so quickly — that was Shepard; sometimes it was necessary to change plans at the last minute, the last _second_ , and there she was, ready to jump into the fray and take the bastard down in a spray of righteous fury and armor-piercing ammo.  It was a trait that had served her well on the missions they’d worked together, but a hunt like this was… different.  This kind of job required patience and finesse, and while Garrus knew Shepard could be patient when she needed to be, and she definitely wasn’t lacking in finesse, he also knew Shepard’s patience went out the damn window the moment something became personal.  

Kai Leng came to mind.  There had been shadows in Shepard’s eyes when she came from Thane’s hospital room, and Garrus doubted even a bullet between the assassin’s eyes would ever really eradicate them.

Garrus, Bailey, and Jack were all in attendance, obviously.  Vega, Cortez, and Ash had all been briefed on just the barest details so far, which left Tallix Arturicus, and Doctor Sarik to round out the rest of the group.  Liara and several of Bailey’s tech specialists who’d done work on the security vids were still absent, but due momentarily — or so they all hoped.  The sooner they made their appearance, the closer they were to a positive ID.

It only took Shepard clearing her throat to get the attention of every damn body in that room.  She ran through the preliminary information: Billy was a still at-large escapee from the _Purgatory_ — by now, everyone had a copy of the message he’d sent her — who had found his way, likely via escaping a Reaper-invaded planet, onto the Citadel.  

“Here’s what we know,” she said, linking her hands behind her back and shifting her weight.  “He’s still targeting refugees, likely people who come off the evac shuttles alone — no family or friends.  Until recently he’d only been targeting humans.  We do not know how he approaches them or lures them in.  From what Doctor Sarik has gathered, however, Billy seems to be working faster.  Several weeks separated the first three victims; the two most recent have been within days of each other.  We’ve got no reason to believe he’s going to slack off anytime soon, which means we’re already working on borrowed time.”

She punched a few buttons on the holoprojector and five sets of images soon glowed before them.  The first three were simple — images of the victim’s faces alongside the images of _Shepherd_ cut into their skin.  The second two highlighted the pains Billy had taken to make his next two victims resemble Garrus and Jack.  The turian victim had been likewise marked; Garrus didn’t have the first idea of how Billy had managed to carve Shepard’s name into the plated cowl, but he had, with deep, gouged letters.

“Here’s where Billy’s MO changes,” Shepard said.  “He’s getting braver, a little bolder.”  Garrus saw how she subtly angled herself away from the images of the turian.  “Our guess is he’s recreating the team I took onto the _Purgatory_ when he made his escape.”

“Why?” Vega asked.  “I mean, aside from the fact he’s _loco._ ”

“I’ll hand the floor over to Doctor Sarik to answer that one, lieutenant.”

The medical examiner got to his feet and joined Shepard by the holoprojector.  She stepped back, clearly letting him take the floor, but remained on the peripheral — arms still held tightly behind her back, eyes trained on the doctor.  Sarik had already shared his hypothesis with them, and yet Shepard looked almost as if she expected — hoped? — for a different explanation.

“Billy has fixated on Commander Shepard.  We suspect this obsession is related to his escape from the _Purgatory_ and has sprung from a juxtaposition in which he finds himself both thankful and vengeful.  He is also, if we note his message and take it at face value — something we must be wary of, given the age of the message —”

“Telling her she’s next?” blurted Vega.  

“That is one of several possible outcomes we must take into consideration,” Sarik said.

“It’s one guy,” Ashley said, shaking her head slowly.  “One guy targeting and taking out civilians.  Not so hard to imagine.  But targeting the commander?  Do we even know how he’d stand up against someone with any sort of military training?”

“That’s not something we’re willing to sit back on and find out,” Garrus drawled, shooting Shepard a loaded glance, silently adding, _No matter how much you may want to, Thena._

Vega looked incredulous, shooting a glance at Shepard before settling back down in his seat, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe anyone would dare try taking out the indomitable Commander Shepard.  And… in truth, Garrus saw Vega’s point — Ash and Jack’s too.  Shepard _was_ formidable.  But she _wasn’t_ invincible — but he knew well enough, _too well_ , that Shepard wasn’t immortal, and she wasn’t omniscient.  Anyone — even Shepard — could be caught unawares, particularly when she didn’t have anyone watching her six, and Garrus knew the events on Aratoht leading all the way to the destruction of the Alpha Relay were the sorts of things that could happen when Shepard was caught off-guard.  He also knew that not Ash, Vega, or Jack had any real idea just how deeply Hackett’s mission had hit Shepard — so of _course_ they bought into the Shepard mystique.  And even Garrus knew if there was a way out, if there was a miracle to be pulled out of thin air, chances were better than not that Shepard would figure one out.  She was _good_ , but she wasn’t _infallible_.

And, hell, who among them could even begin predict the actions of someone so obviously lacking a firm grip on reality?

Doc Sarik went into further detail regarding what various tests and scans had revealed regarding physical trauma and cause of death, and Garrus found himself looking more closely at the images of the dead turian.  Carving messages into bodies wasn’t anything new — ask any krogan who knew even a little bit of history.  But the force a human could put behind a sharp tool couldn’t begin to compare to what a krogan could do.  So how’d he manage it?  

For that matter, how’d he manage to mimic Garrus’ own scars?  Granted, the results on the lookalike were… cruder and messier, but still the question remained:  _How?_   And how’d he blast a hole in the damn armor anyway?  It had taken a gunship to damage Garrus’ own armor, and that had been a damn fine set (made evident by the fact that it had taken a gunship just to make a _hole_ ).  Granted, if the turian wasn’t military, a merc, or C-Sec, the quality of the armor wouldn’t have been quite the same, and if that were the case, it would’ve taken less effort to make a hole.  Less effort, sure, but still _a lot of effort_.

“Garrus?” Shepard asked, and he realized he hadn’t been paying attention for at least the last thirty seconds.  “You look like you’ve got something to add.”

“Not exactly,” he replied, leaning forward on his elbows, looking harder at the turian’s image.  “You already said the turian’s neck was broken, doc, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“How tall was the victim?”

Sarik blinked once.  “Two meters, roughly.”

“So that’s, what, a good… third of a meter taller than the average human male?  Maybe more?”

At Sarik’s nod, Garrus leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slowly.  “So how’d he do it?  How’d he do any of it?  Do you know the force it’d take to carve anything into a turian’s plates?”  He glanced at Shepard.  “I’ll give you a hint:  Ask Wrex.  Or Grunt — he might have the actual memories.  And his face—” He gestured at the right side of his own face. “It took a gunship to do this kind of damage.  I don’t care how much soundproofing you’ve got in place, that’s gonna make a noise.  I know we’re focusing on the _why,_ but I’ve gotta admit, I’m a little more curious about the _how._ ”

“And the _where_ ,” Shepard added, her frown mirroring his now.  “Garrus raises a good point. Where’s he doing this, and how’s he transporting bodies so no one sees him?”

“Tech, tech, and more tech,” replied Jack, leaning back in her chair and kicking one booted foot up on the table.  “Probably stole what he’s got.  Might’ve even stolen it off his victims — or took whatever credits they had and spent it on gear.  If he’s strippin’ biotags, then fooling security cams is the least of your worries.  He could’ve even lifted a tactical shield off a C-Sec agent or Cerberus sleaze.”  She looked hard at Shepard.  “You’ve gotta stop thinking like someone who follows the rules.”

“All right, Jack,” countered Shepard.  “How would _you_ break a turian’s neck?”

If the question shocked Jack, she didn’t show it.  She only raised both eyebrows at Shepard, then glanced at Garrus. “I wouldn’t,” she replied, lifting up a hand and letting the biotic energy gather there a moment before allowing it to disperse harmlessly.  “I’d probably toss his ass out a window.  Hell, there are plenty of ways I — or any decent biotic — could kill someone.  Sure as hell wouldn’t use our hands.”

“Why not?”

Jack looked around.  “No other biotics in the room, huh?  All right, here’s why.  It’s fucking inefficient.  It’s the difference between writing with a pen and using a terminal.  You could do it, but why bother?”

“She’s right,” Sarik agreed.  “There’s no forensic evidence on any of the bodies indicating that biotic abilities were used to kill them.”

“And it’d be in their files,” Jack added.  “Pull up mine sometime and see what’s there.”  She gave a little smirk.  “Next time you’re in the mood for a little light reading.”

“Were the victims drugged?” Ashley asked.  “Might explain how he could’ve subdued the turian.”

“Toxicology reports indicated nothing unusual,” Sarik answered.  “No recent ingestion of alcohol or controlled substances.”

“So, if nothing else,” Shepard said grimly, “we’ve got a killer who knows his tech.  I think we can all agree on that.”

“Where’s Tali when you need her?” Garrus asked.  

Shepard’s nod was immediate.  “Tell me about it.  She’s too far away to help us, that’s for damn sure. I’ll forward our intel to EDI; she can probably give us some kind of idea the type of equipment that could do what Billy’s done.”  She punched a few keys on the holoprojector, typing as she spoke.  “We still don’t have a how, but the method might reveal itself if we can pin down his location.”  The images of the victims faded away, replaced by a three-dimensional map of the Citadel, arms extended.  The image tilted slightly, showing the entire construct level by level.

“That may make for one hell of a complex grid search, Commander,” said Cortez.

“I think we can safely assume he’s staying fairly close to the docks,” she replied, and with a punch of a button, the refugee holding area went from a dull gold glow to a bright blue. 

“It’s likely his victims are going with him willingly,” Doctor Sarik added.  “As I said, toxicology reports indicate that the victims were not impaired.”

Bailey nodded.  “So he’s not giving anyone any time to develop second thoughts.”

“Exactly what I’m thinking,” said Shepard as she punched several more keys.  Five points on the map lit up.  “Your show, Bailey.”

Bailey didn’t stand up, which didn’t surprise Garrus — his wounds weren’t being given much time to heal.  “As you’ve all been briefed, from most to least recent, bodies were discovered in the back storage room at the Dark Star lounge.  The restroom at Flux. The maintenance bay for Zakera Ward’s environmental controls.  Janitorial closet on Bachjret Ward.  Waste collection chute servicing the docks,” he said, pointing to each light as he listed off the locations.  “That’s where the first victim was discovered.”

Shepard tapped again at the holoterminal’s keypad.  “All right.  Let’s see what transit routes are common to those locations.”

There were a lot of them.  A discouraging amount, in fact.  Intertwining red lines spread far and wide across the map, and Shepard swore under her breath.

But no, there was something wrong.  Something that didn’t make _sense._

“I doubt he would’ve been able to haul a dead turian around too far without being noticed — cloak or no cloak,” Garrus pointed out.  “Let’s centralize that and look at a radius encompassing… three rapid transit stops.  Five, if you want to play it safe.”

  Again, a startling number of red lines indicating transit routes lit up the map.

“He moved,” Cortez blurted suddenly.

Shepard blinked at the map, then looked at Cortez.  “What?” 

The pilot pushed himself out of his seat and joined Shepard.  “Look,” he said, typing rapidly on the keyboard.  “Look at the two different directions of travel.  You’ve got the Wards here, but Flux and Dark Star are _here._   The first three points are easily accessed off the same rapid transit line.  But Flux and Dark Star _aren’t._   And if he moved a turian?  Whatever and wherever he was calling home _before,_ he’s not there now.”

“It makes sense,” Arturicus added.  “He’s doing more to the bodies now than before.  He’s going to need more room.  Vakarian’s got a damn good point — he needed some kind of equipment to do that kind of damage on the latest body.”

“Not a gunship,” Garrus added, “but something with some punch.”

Arturicus nodded.  “Could still be helpful to comb the lower wards, see if we can find out where he had been hiding.  He may have left behind… something useful.”

Bailey didn’t look convinced.  “That’s a lot of ground to cover searching somewhere we know he’s not gonna be.”

“It might be less ground than you think, Commander.”  Garrus twisted around in his chair to see Liara standing by the door, two more asari and a salarian — all C-Sec — in tow.  Bailey’s tech specialists, he suspected.

“Find anything?” Shepard asked.  Garrus wondered if Liara heard that note in Shepard’s voice — the one that said, _Tell me you found something._

“More than we expected.  No positive ID yet — I have some facial-recognition programs on some of my equipment I want to run that should be able to sharpen the low-quality images we salvaged from the scrambled feeds.  But what we _have_ found is the route he took via rapid transit.”  Liara pulled up her omni-tool and joined Shepard by the holoprojector.  “Let me sync up the data and you’ll see…”

Suddenly, four points along one of the numerous transit strips went red.

“The feeds coming from these four security cams have been compromised several times over the last six weeks,” explained Liara.

“Occasional static or feedback isn’t too uncommon,” one of the asari officers added.  “It was intermittent enough that nobody noticed anything was wrong until we tried to access the vids after the fact.  But these four points all experienced static on the same nights, and those dates coincided with Doctor Sarik’s estimated time of death for the victims.”

Arturicus rubbed his chin, frowning at the map.  “That narrows it down.”

Shepard glanced at Liara, then back at the map, asking, “What do you think of Cortez’s theory that Billy’s changed locations?”

“I think it’s incredibly likely,” Liara replied.  

“Think you can give us a grid to search?”  Shepard’s eyes never left the map, they only narrowed, the blue turning flinty as the possibilities began turning over in her mind.  Garrus _knew_ that look.

Liara’s attention went back to her omni-tool.  “Almost certainly.”  A few moments later, several similar areas along a different rapid transit line went red.  “It makes sense if he’s moved — Dark Star and Flux are nowhere near the lower wards.”

“No, they sure aren’t,” Garrus said, feeling his plates prickle as a few more pieces fell into place.  “But they’re damn close to the Presidium.”  He turned to look at Bailey.  “Melinda Turner — was she the first victim you found _after_ the Cerberus attack?”

“Sure was,” Bailey answered.

“Take advantage of the chaos to relocate,” Jack said.  “Makes sense to me.”

“And Cerberus wasn’t being too picky when it came to shooting civilians,” Vega added.  “Our guy could’ve picked up a passkey off a dead body and _bam,_ new digs.”

“Presidium apartments would have more space,” Ashley pointed out.  “Better soundproofing, too.”

“And if you’re a refugee sick and tired of sleeping on floors or in chairs, you might not ask too many questions if someone told you they’d found somewhere better to stay,” said Shepard.

Garrus had the feeling some part of Shepard may have been speaking from experience.

“All right, Shepard,” said Bailey.  “How do you wanna play this?”

 Shepard’s fingers tapped a rapid, impatient rhythm on the tabletop as she shook her head.  “I don’t want to tip Billy off, if it’s at all possible.  Liara, can you narrow down the search areas more?  I think it’s worth also checking out the lower wards to see if we can find where he might have been before.  At this point anything that could help us—”

Just then, Garrus’ comm started buzzing in his ear.  He ignored it for a moment, but the connection wasn’t breaking off.  “Yeah?” he answered, keeping his voice down.

It was EDI.  “Garrus.  Where is Commander Shepard?”

“What?”  He frowned at the urgency in the AI’s tone.  “She’s here, EDI — standing right in front of me.”

The AI said something more, but Garrus wasn’t listening.  Across the room, Shepard’s comm chirped, and after she answered, her face contorted into puzzled concern.  “Slow _down,_ Traynor.  Say that again.”  A pause.  “What?”  The color faded from her face.  “ _What?_ ”

The doors to the Embassy conference rooms opened, and three turian C-Sec agents charged in.  “Commander Bailey—” one of them barked out, but he went perfectly and utterly still once he laid eyes on Shepard.

“What the hell is it, man?” Bailey asked, pushing himself gingerly from his chair.  “I’m damn near certain I left orders not to be interrupted.”

The three officers exchanged blatantly confused, worried looks.  “It’s… sir, it’s…”

Bailey’s patience was dwindling.  “Well, come on.  Spit it out.”

“It’s Commander Shepard, sir,” the officer answered, glancing again in Shepard’s direction.  “Someone — in the Presidium reported they—  someone just… discovered Commander Shepard’s body.”

The whole room went very, very quiet.  It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Jack who broke it.

“Shepard’s not dead.  Someone else is.”

Bailey looked _furious,_ his face going red with anger _._   “Cordon off the area—”

“Done, sir.”

“Good.  I want this _contained_ , ASAP,” the commander barked out.  “And how the _hell_ many news vids are already reporting this?”

“Probably all of them,” Liara replied quietly.  “Where in the Presidium?”

“In front of the fountain.  Looks like someone rigged a tactical cloak to keep it hidden.  A witness said she tripped over something, and when she looked down, there was a dead body in N7 armor.”

“Son of a—”

Suddenly, Garrus’ omni-tool blinked to life, its holographic edges frazzled and blurry.  As he tried to deactivate it, he saw, around him, that Sarik’s, Liara’s, and Shepard’s omnis were doing the same thing.  Bailey’s.  Ashley’s, Vega’s, Cortez’s.  Every omni-tool in the conference room had lit up.  

Garrus’ message display was filled with a staticky glow.

Shepard looked around, then at her own omni-tool.  “…And _what_ the goddamn hell is this?” 

The message display churned and wavered before text exploded in a burst:

**SHEPARD CAN’T SAVE THEM.**

**BECAUSE SHEPARD CAN’T SAVE ANYONE.**

**NEVER COULD.**

**SEE YOU SHEPARD.  SOON.**

 

 

###

 

Because every reporter on the Citadel had camped out by the Presidium fountain, the Embassy offices were almost eerily quiet.  Shepard had ordered EDI to help Liara figure out how the hell five custom-modded omni-tools and three C-Sec issued ‘tools could have been hacked at all — never mind so _quickly._

Thena held her Paladin in both hands, glaring down at the target before squeezing the trigger and firing off a round.  It stood to reason the Spectre offices would keep her from getting swarmed by the press until she was ready to make a statement.  It had the side-benefit of allowing her a means by which she could exorcise some of her frustration.  One shot after another after _another_ — the Paladin wasn’t her first choice, but it was a solid pistol all the same and a dependable sidearm to carry when she wasn’t bringing her full load somewhere. After the clip was empty, she popped it out and began to reload when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Here.  This might be more your speed,” Garrus said, handing her his Widow.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the rifle and feeling a rush of gratitude when its solid weight settled in her arms.  It felt more comfortable in her grip, more natural, and even Thena had to admit, the process of focusing on a target, breathing in and out again, and then pulling the trigger was… almost soothing.  The damage it did to the target and the resulting recoil were anything _but_ soothing, but still cathartic in its own unique way.

Down in the Presidium, Bailey, Liara, and Ashley were trying to restore some semblance of order over the rampant chaos that had exploded over the rumors of her death.  They were going to funnel reporters — the reputable ones, anyway — to Bailey’s office where Thena would make a statement assuring the galaxy she was alive and well.

“How are you holding up?” he asked between rounds.

“I’m pissed off, Garrus.”  _Breathe in.  Aim.  Breathe out.  Squeeze._

“I know.”

“I want his ass in a sling, Garrus.”  She pulled the trigger, but the bullet went wide and to the right.  _Breathe.  Aim.  Squeeze._

“I know that, too.  And I’m right there with you.  Don’t forget to breathe.”

“To hell with breathing,” she snarled, shooting again and cursing because the clip was empty.  “I want to know how the hell he pulled off that trick with the omni-tools.”

He sighed and handed a new clip to her as she snapped the old one free.  “Have I mentioned I really miss Tali right now?”

“You and me both.”  

“He’s wrong, you know,” Garrus said as she brought her eye to the scope and aimed.  “You’ve saved plenty of people.”

This time the bullet went sharply right, hitting another target entirely — and badly.  Thena looked over her shoulder, sending him a weary glare.  “Garrus…”

“Come on. You think I don’t know how much that’s bothering you?  On _top_ of everything else?”

“You know,” she looked through the scope again, “at least if he’d come after me, I’d have had a chance against him.  He’s picking people who _don’t._   Who _trust_ him and—”

“He’s a coward, Shepard.  A bully.  If he’d seen even half the things you have…”

That had been on her mind, too.  _You can’t save anyone._   It had been true about Mindoir. It had been true of the duct rats.  It had been _more_ than true about Akuze.  Kaidan.  The colonists on Horizon. Mordin.  Thane.  Three hundred thousand batarians.  And just how many on Earth hadn’t she saved?

“Shepard?  Shepard.  _Thena._ ”

She lowered the gun, but stared straight ahead at the targets.  “Sometimes it feels like I can’t, Garrus.  For every success, there are fifty failures — some damn voice in the back of my head comparing how many I’ve been able to save to how many I’ve failed, and those scales always seem to be tipping in the wrong direction.”

Garrus took the gun out of her hands.  “You know what?  If you’re going to let a murdering, mutilating psychopath get in your head and make you doubt whether you’re a decent soldier, whether you’ve made a difference in this galaxy, you don’t get to fire my damn gun.”

“Garrus—”

“No,” he interrupted sharply.  “You listen to me, Shepard.  This son of a bitch is trying to get under your plates, and you’re _letting him._   Maybe he’s hoping you’ll second-guess yourself and slip up somewhere.  Maybe he’s trying to piss you off and make you careless.  Either way, now is _sure_ as hell not the time to let him get into your head.”

“Give me the rifle, Garrus.”

“You want the rifle?” Garrus asked, inclining his head at her in a silent challenge.  “Be Commander Shepard about it.”

She squared her shoulders and met his glare with one of her own.  “Gimme the damn gun _now,_ Vakarian.”

And without so much as a breath of an argument, Garrus handed her the Widow.  “That’s more like it.”

 

###

 

Garrus didn’t like it.  He didn’t like one damn thing about any of it.

He leaned against the far wall, as far from the cluster of reporters as he could get, grimacing sympathetically as several hovercams floated just above and behind the reporters, shining impossibly bright lights down on Shepard.  He wasn’t sure how she did it, but she always managed to stay cool in front of the press — even when they badgered her with questions bordering on — and in some cases crossing the border into — the moronic.

“Commander!  Is it true you faked your death as a ruse against the Reaper threat?”

“Commander!  Is it true the killer is a jilted lover?”

“Commander!  Are you working with C-Sec to bring the killer to justice?  And if so, how is this affecting your campaign against the Reapers?”

She answered each question with varying levels of civility, but Garrus wasn’t listening anymore; he was thinking.  All of the other victims had been hidden — and this one had been too, but hidden in plain sight somewhere busy, somewhere noteworthy, somewhere _important._ Billy had to know a move like this would thrust Shepard into the spotlight.

…Because as long as she was in the spotlight — in theory, at least — she wouldn’t be hunting _him._  

Unless Garrus missed his guess — and he rarely did — this looked a hell of a lot like a calculated move by Billy to throw a few obstacles in front of Shepard and buy himself more time.

“So what’s the story, Garrus?”

He blinked and looked down to find Diana Allers watching him expectantly.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asking Shepard that?” he asked lightly.

“I’ve asked Shepard enough questions lately,” she said, sending him a wry look.  “Not sure she’s all that thankful for it.”

That much, at least, was true.  “Haven’t seen the crime scene yet, but from what I hear someone murdered a refugee and made her up to look like Shepard.”

“So, what… do you think it’s a warning?  A threat?  Are we talking one indoctrinated loony, or something worse?”

Now _that_ was a good question.  Indoctrinated?  No, that didn’t sound right.  Not when you considered the previous victims, anyway.  He shook his head.  “Well, he could be, I suppose.  I’m not sure I think he is.”

“So it’s a garden variety obsessed psycho.”  She folded her arms and looked over at Shepard, still answering questions and deflecting unfounded speculations.  “One who just put a _crapload_ of attention on her.”

“Think you can call off the dogs?”

“Maybe.”  She looked over her shoulder at Shepard and shrugged.  “I could _try_ claiming exclusivity rights.  But do you have any idea how many news vids have already been uploaded? Can’t do anything about it by that point.”

“Doesn’t take long, does it?”

She shook her head.  “No.  Editing takes up the most time when I’ve got to do it, but I can still get a segment wrapped up in a few hours, depending on how much editing it needs and how in depth it is — and how long the commander puts up with my questions.”

As it turned out, Allers didn’t have to call off the dogs at all.  Once Shepard had answered all the questions she was going to answer, it was Bailey who sent the reporters away.  

“It’s my office,” he groused at them.  “I say when the press conference starts, and when it’s _over._ ”  

“That’s my cue,” said Allers as she turned to leave.  “Back to the _Normandy_ for me.”

“That’s it?” he asked her.  “You just came to watch?”  Allers shrugged.

“The crew wanted to be sure the commander was okay.  I was the only one with the press credentials to get past C-Sec.”  She shrugged and, with a backwards wave, headed out with the rest of the reporters.

Once Bailey’s office was quiet again, he pushed out of his chair.  “I just got a message from Arturicus.  The crime scene hasn’t yielded a whole hell of a lot other than one seriously modded tactical cloak.  Cerberus-issued.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Shepard said.  “There was enough left of Cerberus after the raid to scavenge who knows how much tech and weaponry.”

Garrus turned his attention to Bailey.  “Just how was the cloak modded?”

“Not sure exactly.  Arturicus said it was hooked up to draw power from the kinetic shields off the amor the victim was wearing.”

Crap.  Managing something like that would’ve kept a cloak active a hell of a lot longer than was normal.  “So we don’t have the first idea how long the victim was sitting there before someone tripped over her?”

“That’s about the long and short of things, yeah,” Bailey replied.  “Not until Doc Sarik finishes his autopsy and compares the findings to the other victim.”  The commander leaned back in his seat and looked hard at Shepard.  “Son of a bitch has a hell of a sense of timing, I’ll say that.”

“I was thinking much the same thing.”

“Watch your back, Shepard,” said Bailey with a shake of his head.  “I don’t like this.  Not one damn bit.”

 

###

 

Doctor Sarik was just finishing his autopsy when Thena and Garrus reached his lab down in the morgue.  Bailey had stayed behind — there was still a great deal of fervor being whipped up about Commander Shepard’s “death,” and someone in an official position needed to be able to speak officially on the subject.

“There are times this desk really needs a body sitting behind it.  This’d be one of those times,” he’d said.

The doors were still sealed, but when Sarik caught sight of them through one of the lab windows, he waved them in, moving to a console and tapping a series of keys.  The naked female body lay partially covered on a long metal table — whoever the victim was, she hadn’t yet been transferred to one of the morgue storage pods — and from Thena’s vantage point, she saw a shock of blue-black hair against too-pale skin.

This woman had been made to look like her.  And whoever had done it did such a good job, half the galaxy believed Thena was dead.

She’d been dead once.  And with every step closer she took to the steel table with the dead lookalike on it, the less she wanted to look.  She remembered hissing oxygen, panicked breaths growing shallower and shallower as she ran out of air.  She remembered feeling cold, cold down to her bones and into the marrow, so cold it _hurt_.  She remembered her final frantic thoughts — _Not here!  Not now!  Not like this!_ — before the burning in her lungs submitted to the cold in her bones, and there was nothing.

Thena remembered the moment there was nothing.  Still remembered.

This woman had struggled for breath.  Her lungs had burned.  This woman had probably thought, _Not here!  Not now!  Not like this!_ And she’d died anyway.

“Shepard?”  Garrus’ voice — just curious enough.  Never pushing, never demanding.  Just curious.  Worried.

“I’m okay.”  Her reply was too automatic.  She knew he heard the lie, and she knew he’d never call her on it.

“You don’t have to—”

“Yeah, Garrus.  I do.”  _I have to._  

Anger, defiance, and determination propelled her the dead woman’s side.  Yet more anger, tempered with regret, made her look down at the woman’s face.

The jolt of recognition left her feeling queasy, with a sort of misplaced déjà-vu — the likeness was startling.  Terrifying.  Had this been what Liara saw when she collected Thena’s body for Cerberus?  Had she looked down at Thena’s face, this unnaturally pale and still?  _Doubtful,_ she told herself.  _You were just meat and tubes, remember?_   The doppelgänger’s chin-length hair had been messily cut, locks sticking out in disarray now that the rest of the length had been hacked away.

She noted the bruising around the woman’s neck.  “Cause of death the same?”

“Yes,” Sarik answered.  “The victim’s hair was recently cut, indicated by strands found beneath the armor.”

Thena nodded, unsurprised.  “Any other differences?”

“A few,” answered Sarik, gesturing lower on the woman’s body — the part still hidden by the sheet.  “Traces of skin and hair were found on the hands and beneath some of the fingernails.”

_She fought back.  Good._

“Biotag fried like the rest?” asked Garrus.

“No.”

Thena jerked her head up to look at the doctor.  “What?”

“We know who she was.”  Sarik tapped at a nearby console.  “Kimberly Desmene.  Age, 32.  Refugee from Earth.  City:  Toronto.  Last seen attempting to gain employment — we assume — at the Purgatory lounge.”  The image on the monitor was from the woman’s drivers license; in life, the resemblance didn’t seem quite as striking — Kimberly’s hair, long enough to fall well past her shoulders, was the same color as Thena’s, but her face was softer, heart-shaped.  Her nose was longer and straighter — Thena had once heard her own nose, faintly turned up at the end, described as “pert.”  They looked alike, certainly — and that had been enough to catch Billy’s eye.

“Did you get anything interesting off the skin samples?”

“Billy is a human male, likely aged 28-36.  His skin tone likely medium with hair that runs from dark blonde to light brown.  Preliminary scans on the hair indicate the suspect uses controlled substances, but I’m going to have to run more tests to learn anything more specific than that.”

Thena thought of the three suspects Liara had shown them.  “Keep running those tests — if we can figure out what he uses, that might give us a lead.”

“Thinking like a detective now, Shepard,” Garrus murmured before raising his voice and asking the doctor, “All right, so that rules out one of our potentials.  Was any of the hair color-treated?”  

When Sarik shook his head, Thena looked up at Garrus.  “So now we’re down to two instead of three.”

“You’d be amazed at how much that doesn’t make me feel better.”

“There’s more,” said Sarik.  “I recovered carpet fibers — the fiber makeup is common to carpets installed in the Upper Wards apartments.  If nothing else, that confirms our hypothesis that he’s made his base somewhere near the Presidium.  Given more time, I _may_ be able to determine which block of apartments the fiber came from.”

“Hell, that couldn’t hurt to know.  What about time of death?” Garrus asked.  “Compared to the turian recovered this morning.”

“I placed his death at approximately 22:00 hours, last night.  Time of death in this instance was somewhere between two and three in the morning.  We have very little idea of how long the body had been cloaked.”

“And she was last seen at Purgatory?” Thena asked.  

When Sarik nodded, Garrus said, “And he could have been coming out of Flux around that time.”

Sarik hesitated.  “Speculation, but it’s a reasonable theory.”

Thena looked down again at the dead woman.  Beyond the length of her hair, there had been no other cosmetic additions.  The woman simply… _naturally_ resembled Thena.  “He didn’t need that much time with her.  He didn’t need to change her.”

“And the markings?” asked Garrus.

“It’s the same as the others — same location, same message,” Sarik told them.

Thena looked around the lab, but every surface was pristine, with no sign of what she was looking for.  “Mind if I take a look at the armor?”

“Certainly,” Sarik replied, waving at a door off the lab.  “I’ve finished running scans on it, but haven’t come up with much other than more hair and more carpet fibers.  But that’s more than I’ve been able to pull off the previous victims.”

“He’s working faster,” observed Garrus. “Getting sloppy.”

Sarik punched a few keys on the holokeyboard, which began the process of storing the body.  Thena had had her fill of the uniform white pods, but still she watched as the automated process slid the entire steel tabletop into the unit, locking it in place before trundling it back to refrigerated storage.

“The armor’s just in here,” he said, waving them to the adjoining lab.  This one was somewhat less stark than the autopsy bay, filled with various scanners and other equipment.  The armor in question lay disassembled on a steel table, an unintentional echo of the woman they’d just seen.  It gleamed red under the harsh lights.

“He painted it,” she stated bluntly.  “He painted it to look like mine.”

“That’s not a surprise, is it?  The others—”

“No, Garrus.  He painted it to look like _my armor._   The armor that’s in my locker on the _Normandy_ _right now.”_   She ran her fingers through her hair and stopped suddenly.  “Anderson suggested I get my hair cut before going before the board.”

“…Why?” Garrus asked.  Doctor Sarik looked similarly puzzled.  

Thena shrugged.  “It’s a human grooming thing.  Goes along with a freshly-pressed uniform and polished boots.  Thing is… that woman’s hair was cut like mine.  Mine, right _now._ If he’s already made the effort to make two previous victims look like the people he remembered from the _Purgatory_ , why not do the same in this case?”

Garrus only shrugged.  “Could be his memory isn’t that great.”

Thena shot him a skeptical glare.  “His memory’s no worse than yours or mine — what color was my armor while the _Normandy_ was a Cerberus ship?”

“Black, red stripe down the arm,” Garrus answered immediately.

“Dark grey, but close enough.  He’s remembered all those other details — he might not have been able to copy Jack’s tattoos exactly, but he got close enough.  He remembered it’s the right side of your face that was scarred, and the right side of your armor that was damaged.  Hell, Garrus, he even painted an _eagle_ on the turian’s armor — in just the right spot — and I know there isn’t _actually_ an animal called an eagle on Palaven,” she said, just as he seemed primed to interject, “but it looks a lot like one, so just work with me.  My point is this: he’s remembered plenty of other details.  Why deviate _now_?”

Garrus looked down at the armor and she followed his gaze; something about the way it was laid out in pieces made it appear almost… forlorn.  

“He’s already made it clear he’s coming after you.  Maybe this is the endgame.”  The heavy note in his voice made his subharmonics that much more pronounced.  

“And maybe he’ll keep killing people who look like me until he _gets_ me.”

“Then we’ll need to find him.  And I don’t want to hear any more crap about using yourself as bait just to lure him out.”

“He may be counting on Commander Shepard to do just that,” Sarik offered.  “He may attempt to turn your nobility against you, Commander.  I would recommend heeding your colleague.”

“Doc’s on my side, Shepard.  You’re not winning this one.  For once.”

 

###

 

As they made their way back to the _Normandy_ , Thena made the mistake of glancing at her watch — it was late, later even than she thought, and neither she nor Garrus had eaten anything since a hasty breakfast.  It barely seemed possible they’d been at this all day.  All things considered, it shouldn’t have been any sort of surprise her appetite was gone.  She wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower, crawl into bed, and forget so much of that day had happened.  Every new victim felt like a strike against her — against her ability to protect anyone at all.  She had to wonder how Billy knew exactly what to say, exactly how to — as Garrus had put it — _get under her plates._

The news was out now — there was no trying to contain it; the only thing the press seemed unable to agree on was what sensationalized name to call the killer.  Some called him “The _Normandy_ Strangler.”  It dismayed Thena how quickly that one seemed to catch on.  Not that it was much better than “The Refugee Reaper.”  Admiral Hackett was going to order her off the Citadel once he got wind of this.  She was sure of it — right after he hit the damn roof, of course.  Rumors of Commander Shepard’s death did precisely shit for morale.

“I know that look, Shepard.”

She looked up to find Garrus watching her, the look in his eyes far too eloquent for actual words.  “What look?” 

“You went from looking grim to mutinous in about three strides.  What’s on your mind?”

She huffed a breath of mirthless laughter.  “You’re paying awfully close attention.”

“Someone’s got to.  Who better than me?  Spill it.”

She told him her concerns.  About Hackett.  About morale.  She left out the bits about herself, for now.

Garrus lapsed into a weighty, thoughtful silence, and when he finally did speak, the words came out slowly and perfectly measured.  “You know, after some of those missions we took care of for the Fifth Fleet, back in the day, I was all but certain Hackett was actively trying to get you killed.  Then Aratoht happened.  Let’s just say I don’t have a whole hell of a lot of faith in Hackett’s orders.”

She laughed — it felt strange to do so.  “What, are you suggesting _insubordination_ , Garrus?

He tipped his head and grinned down at her.  And then he winked.  _Winked._   “Would I do that?”

She laughed again, wondering where in the hell he’d picked up winking.  _More vid research, probably_ , she thought with a sudden, fierce swell of fondness.  “Yeah.  You would.”

“If he tells you to get off the station, you just point out to him that it’ll do a hell of a lot more damage to morale if you abandon the refugees right now.  Besides, someone’s killing people and dressing them up like you and your crew.  You take off now, it’s gonna look like you don’t give a damn.”

“And you don’t think we should just let C-Sec do their job?”

Garrus shook his head sharply.  “C-Sec is running on a skeleton crew right now.  They’ve had losses it’s going to take time to recover.  Bailey’s a good cop — bends the rules, and I don’t always agree with the direction he bends them, but he’s got competent people under his command.  If they were all at full strength, I’d say yeah, they wouldn’t need any help.  But we’ve got resources they don’t.  Let EDI, Donnelly and Daniels take a look at that modded cloak and you’ll have answers by dinnertime.”

“It’s past dinnertime, Garrus.”

“It is?  Crap.  Answers by morning, then.  We’re getting good intel, Shepard.  We’re closing in on him, and he knows it.”

“You think we’ve got him scared?”

“I think we’ve got him _something_.”


	7. Day Three

Despite the fact that Thena woke up once again next to Garrus, her sleep had been hardly restful.  Too many fragmented dreams full of too many disturbing images — a dead child running through the _Purgatory’s_ burning wreckage as prisoners and guards alike shot at her as well as each other, her crew replaced by dead doppelgängers, her ears filled with the piercing shriek of a thresher maw as it decimated squad members past and present.

_Shepard can’t save anyone._

All right, so Billy knew about Akuze.  Probably.  Possibly.  _Plausibly?_   Okay, there was a chance he didn’t, but it was likely he did.  And, really, any extranet search would have told him about Akuze, or at least enough to tell him how many people she’d lost.  And if it wasn’t Akuze he’d been referring to, it could have been Mindoir.  Or Horizon.  Or the Alpha relay.  Or Earth.

_Or it could have been a lucky guess and a random remark and, dammit, stop reading so far into this crap._

The day didn’t improve much upon waking — Liara was having slow progress with the facial recognition program she was running, EDI and Gabby Daniels could tell her _how_ the tactical cloak had been modded to run off the kinetic shields, but the tech he’d used to boost the cloak wasn’t anything unusual or special, unless you counted general know-how.  EDI had called the modification “elegantly simplistic,” and Thena found herself taking issue with the AI’s choice of adjectives.

“It’s the most logical choice for an alternative power supply,” EDI explained.  “Despite the fact that it is fundamentally impractical for someone in combat.”

“You can’t tell me anything else about the mods or the tech he used?”

EDI was silent a moment — longer than a moment, really; it was the sort of pause that usually preceded questions about morality or humanity.  Finally, she said, “There is a difference, Shepard, between one who comprehends technology, and one whose understanding exists on a level that is innate, rather than one based on study.”

“Like, say, someone like Tali.”

“Indeed.”  After a moment, she tilted her head, adding, “Engineer Adams would prove a sufficient example as well.  They do not look at parts and circuits acting independently; they understand that technology is more than a sum of its parts.”

“The difference between someone who can build something versus someone who can just repair it.”

“Yes.”

She thought of multiple omni-tools all malfunctioning at once, of the timing required to do what he’d done so far — scrambling security feeds, stripping biotags, modifying tactical cloaks.  Thena realized — and she felt this was a shamefully belated realization — that she may have been underestimating Billy until now.  The message he’d written her had lacked any sort of sophistication, and she’d based at least part of her assumptions on that message, foolish though she’d been to do so.  EDI was right — an innate understanding of something usually transcended conventional education, and education seldom matched or superseded a natural understanding of something.

“So… he knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, yes,” replied EDI with a definitive nod. 

“Commander Shepard.”  Traynor’s voice sounded through the comm system.  “Admiral Hackett wants to speak to you on vid comm.”

Thena barely suppressed her groan.  This was a conversation she’d known was coming — which didn’t mean for a second she was looking forward to it.  And, as she’d suspected, Admiral Hackett was less than pleased with the course of events.

Bypassing any sort of greeting, the admiral simply growled, “What the hell is going on down there, Shepard?”  

She explained the situation as concisely and accurately as she knew how; Hackett’s lined, weathered face remained impassive as she spoke, but for a furrowing of the brow.

“I don’t like this, Commander.”

“Neither do I, sir.  But C-Sec was hit hard by the Cerberus attack.  They need to wrap this up fast before things get worse.”    And Thena knew for a fact things could get worse — things could _always_ get worse.  It was one of the few certainties she knew she could count on in this world. Things would often run from bad to worse before they even headed in the vaguest direction of “better.”  

There was a moment — a breath-holding, heart-pounding moment — when she was almost certain Hackett was going to order her off the Citadel.  He seemed to be considering it — or, rather, he seemed to be considering _something._  

“Get this wrapped up, and soon.”

It occurred to Thena the something the admiral may have been considering was the “personal favor” that sent her to Aratoht and got her ass locked up for six months.

“We’re expecting a positive ID soon, sir,” she reassured him — hoping it wasn’t a false reassurance.  “We’re closing in.”

“And get that damned reporter on your ship to tell people _you aren’t dead._ ”

“Yes, sir.”

“Finish this, Shepard.  Hackett out.”

The connection was broken.  Thena braced her hands against the console and bowed her head, taking a few slow, deep breaths.  She’d bought them a little more time, but Hackett had made his opinion perfectly clear — this couldn’t turn into a time-sink.  She had to do her damned job and apprehend the son of a bitch so they could get back to the matter at hand: completing the Crucible.  Defeating the Reapers.  Ending the harvest.  _Living._

“Shepard?”

Thena lifted her head to find Liara and Garrus in the war-room doorway, silhouetted in the light thrown off by the consoles behind them.  “Tell me you’ve got some good news, Liara.”  She heard the bone-deep weariness in her tone, but she couldn’t find the wherewithal to give a damn just then.

“Oh, she’s got good news, Shepard.”  Garrus’ harmonics resonated with _satisfaction._

“I’ve positively identified Billy,” Liara added.  “Is that good enough?”

Weariness and frustration subsided as she straightened and replied, “Easily the best news I’ve heard all day.  Tell me who we’re looking for.”

“Jeremy Delaporte.  With EDI’s help, I’ve managed to recover some of the data he removed from his files.”

“Do I want to know how you managed that?” Thena asked.

“No, Shepard,” came EDI’s voice.  “I suspect you do not.”

“Then tell me what we’ve learned.”

“I managed to uncover quite a bit of his tech history — the sealed records indicate he’d been accepted into… some kind of Alliance-based program for gifted children — many of the details were scrubbed, but from what I can piece together, he was kicked out of the program.”

“Citing what as the reason?” she asked.

Liara’s answer came with a faint arching of one eyebrow that spoke volumes.  “‘Behavioral difficulties.’”

“And that sounds awfully vague to me,” Garrus murmured dryly.  “Not like the Alliance at _all_.  Not the way they love their paperwork.”

“I’m going to keep working on it,” said Liara.  “But for now we have a face and a name.”

Thena agreed, wholeheartedly.  “And that’s a damn sight better than what we had yesterday.”

The news that they’d uncovered Billy’s identity sent a wave of fresh optimism through C-Sec — and it was that optimism that threw into relief just how defeated they all must have been feeling until that point.  Bailey ordered Arturicus to take a team to Kithoi Ward for a grid search.  Thena sent Jack along with him — Kithoi was still experiencing civil unrest since the Cerberus raid, and had been less than friendly to C-Sec in the days afterward.

“You expecting trouble to crop up down in Kithoi?” Jack asked her.

“I expect less if you’re down there with them.  Keep an eye out — C-Sec’s lost enough already.”

Jack narrowed her eyes and looked hard at Thena.  “You don’t think Billy’s down there.  If you did, your ass would be all over those wards.”

Thena fixed Jack with a level look and said, “I don’t know _where_ he is, Jack — the Upper Wards and the Presidium both encompass a larger area to look despite how much we’ve been able to narrow things down.  It’s where he’s been most recently.  That doesn’t mean he’s still there.  The only thing we can do right now is check the apartment block Sarik gave us and question anyone who hasn’t been killed or left the station entirely.”

Jack did not look convinced.

“Arturicus needs you, Jack,” Thena pressed.  “Kithoi’s damned unfriendly right now.  It’s going to be a trickier area to search.”

Several seconds passed as Jack watched Thena’s face with that same hard, impenetrable look.  Then, finally, she gave a nod and strode off to join the team hitting the lower wards.

Thena’s squad was larger, due to the fact that the area Billy had been spotted on the Presidium security vids widened the search radius. True to his word, Doctor Sarik had been able to narrow down the search, using the carpet fibers he’d found on the last victim.  He’d found that the construction company contracted to build that block of apartments had used a specific brand of flooring manufactured on Illium.  The makeup of that particular fiber belonged to a carpet that was now out of production, which made their job a hell of a lot easier.  The apartment block was comfortably situated in the Upper Wards, a stone’s throw from the Citadel tower and Meridian Marketplace.

Unfortunately, that still left a vast number of units to check.  Thena and her team — including Garrus, Ashley, Vega, and Cortez, as well as a handful of marines and what C-Sec agents Bailey could spare — split up two by two, and checked them all, floor by floor. The empty, abandoned apartments were searched and scanned, while nervous neighbors who hadn’t been driven from their homes answered questions with all the temerity of rabbits.

Hours later, the search had uncovered precisely _zilch._  

“Shepard, come in.”  Jack’s voice filtered through the comm.  Thena sat on an ornately carved bench incongruously whole in an apartment lobby that still bore Cerberus’ fingerprints like so many other lobbies and hallways and apartments.  Bullet holes marred walls, and doors had been hacked open.  Grenades had blown holes through some of the walls, the resultant smoke smudging and staining the ceiling.  Even the Thessian marble floor was gouged in spots, blue and grey veins of color through pristine white rock scattered in pebbles across the floor, crunching beneath her boots.  Across from her, a door leading to an emergency stairway blinked intermittent yellow, like an uneven heartbeat.

“What’ve you got, Jack?” she asked, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees.

“We’ve found the asshole’s workshop.  There’s some pretty rank shit here, Shepard.  It’s bad.  Arturicus is calling in a team of crime scene specialists.  Wants to know if you want to meet us down here and see what we got.”

Thena sighed.  “Yeah.  We’ll start making our way there.  Upper Ward apartments are a bust.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”  She rolled her shoulders and neck until a series of muted cracks and pops sounded from beneath her armor.  “We’ll be there soon as we can.  Shepard out.”  She looked up at Garrus.  “Either he knew we were coming and he’s moved on or he wasn’t here to begin with.  Sounds like the other squad’s found his old hidey-hole in Kithoi Ward, though.”

“So I heard.  Probably quicker if we cut through the marketplace and take the elevator to rapid transit.”

“Yeah,” Thena agreed, standing and holstering her assault rifle as she got on the comm, ordering Ash, Vega, and Cortez to Kithoi, and the rest of the team back to C-Sec to await further orders.  She’d thought — she’d been _so damn sure_ they’d find him in one of the luxury apartments.  She didn’t see how Billy — no, _Delaporte_ — could resist it, particularly if he’d been a resident of the _Purgatory_ , and then found himself stuck as a refugee for a time.  It didn’t make sense that he’d be able to resist somewhere so… plush.

It was a short walk to the marketplace, and despite the plumes of smoke spiraling up from sections below and above the promenade, it still thrummed pleasantly with life.  People still sat on the benches, still talked, still shared meals — the scent of food wafting over from Apollo’s Cafe was surprisingly mouth-watering.  It just went to prove that no matter what the threat, people still wanted to connect, still wanted to at least _try_ and feel normal.  

Tiny snatches of normalcy were precious things these days.

“People are watching you, Shepard.  Probably a good for you to be getting out here,” Garrus said quietly.  “It should squash any lingering death hoax rumors.”

She noticed a few people eyeing her a little strangely, but she shrugged and said, “It’s not _so_ different from the first time.”

“The first time the galaxy thought you were dead?”  he asked.  “To be fair, you _had_ been dead at the time.”

“You didn’t seem too surprised.”

He laughed and shook his head.  “You forget.  I saw you through my scope.  I had some time to collect myself before you charged in, guns blazing.”

She chuckled, sending him a sidelong glance. “So you made sure you kept the advantage.”

“Well, yeah.  But how is that different from any other time?” he asked, nudging her shoulder lightly as they climbed a long set of stairs.  “There wasn’t time to be surprised.  Besides, I was…” he looked over at her, and it seemed to dawn on both of them that neither of them had discussed those days much.  Or at all.  “Shepard, I knew I was in an impossible position.  I knew — thought I knew at the time — I was going to die up there.  Not before I ran out of ammo, of course, but I knew it was the obvious end result.  To tell you the truth, I thought you were a hallucination.  One too many stims.”

“You scared the hell out of me, you know.”

“What, me getting shot in the face with a rocket launcher?” He chuckled.  “It wasn’t a party for me either, you know.”

Then, as they reached the landing, Thena stopped and looked around them.  “Garrus?”

“Yeah?”

“How far are we to Flux and Dark Star?”

“Right now?”  He thought a second, then looked down at her, browplates moving up, then down again as he narrowed his eyes.  “Pretty close, actually.  Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That it couldn’t hurt to just check if anyone up there’s seen him around?”

“No, it couldn’t.”

Over the comm, Garrus let Arturicus know they were checking something out, but would then meet up with them afterward at the Lower Wards.  Arturicus acknowledged, pointing out with a dry sort of grim humor, “Nothing we found is going anywhere.”

The small block of apartments was quiet — even the ambient noise from the marketplace was duller up here.  Just as before, some of the apartment doors had been hacked, yielding easy entrance.  The empty apartments had little of note; most had been ransacked and trashed.  Some had been looted — though expensive artwork and mementoes were often left untouched, while consumables had been stripped entirely from the cupboards.

“Someone’s stocking up,” she observed, remarking a bare pantry closet.

The floor’s sole resident was an elderly human woman who allowed her door open a crack long enough to yell, “Stop playing around and asking foolish questions, young woman, and kill those goddamned alien bugs!” before closing the door and sealing it.

“Witness your adoring public,” Garrus intoned as they turned away from the door.  “Really, Shepard, with all the fawning they do over you, it’s a wonder your ego isn’t the size of Omega by now.”

Thena shrugged and headed down the stairs, starting for the opposite wing.  “She’s not wrong.”

“If it makes you feel better, I have a feeling we’re going to get back to killing those goddamned alien bugs before too much longer.”

The next apartment they checked was so much like the rest — expensive decorations in place and mostly untouched, while the refrigerator and pantry were stripped bare.

“Someone’s probably selling food to the refugees at jacked-up prices,” Garrus muttered darkly as they left the abandoned apartment.  The lock on the one next-door to it glowed yellow, flickering and stuttering like so many other hacked locks.  Another person’s home entered and ransacked, and if the residents were lucky enough, they weren’t here when it happened.  Pushing down the urge to simply hack the door open, Thena knocked first.

“Shepard?”  Liara’s voice sounded in her ear.  “What’s your location?”

“Still checking out the Presidium apartments.  Why?”

“I think I’ve managed to recover more of the data that had been erased from the _Purgatory’s_ files on Delaporte.”

The door opened a crack, enough to reveal a vague silhouette, with a male voice.  “May I help you?”  

“Hang on, Liara.”

“No, Shepard, wait—”

The door opened wider “Oh.  Hello, Commander Shepard.”

It happened too fast, but also far, far too slowly: Liara’s voice disintegrated into static.  Light, a soft blue glow began to fill in the shadows through the opened crack.  Shadows ebbing away to reveal a face too plain to be memorable.  She reached for her sidearm as light brown hair and pale hazel eyes took on a blue cast.

Liara’s voice, bubbling frantically through the static.“—be caref— illy— werful— biot—”

Garrus, his assault rifle already drawn.  “Shepard!”

The static faded away all at once, and Liara’s voice, strident and urgent, _yelling_ in her ear, “He’s a biotic!  Shepard!  _Get out of there!_ ”

A wave of blinding blue energy knocked her and Garrus back, sending them both landing hard against the wall.  Her Paladin hit the floor with a sharp clatter; Garrus’ Vindicator spun into a corner, hitting the wall and ricocheting further out of reach. Thena’s head hit hard; her teeth rattled and the room swam with glittering stars she tried to blink away.

 Billy.  A biotic.  _A goddamn biotic._

Suddenly she had an excellent idea of exactly what kind of information he’d scrubbed from his files.  She knew how he’d managed to hold a turian in place long enough to break his neck with his bare hands.  She thought of the damage she’d seen warp fields deal against armor — with enough time, a warp field could weaken armor enough that it wouldn’t take much effort at all to punch a hole into it.  Warp applied to a turian’s plates, for instance, for a long-enough duration, would doubtless shred them, leaving a mangled mess.

They’d paid too much attention to the _why,_ and not nearly enough attention to the _how._ Oh, they’d touched upon the methods, they’d considered the likelihood of biotics playing a part in the crimes, but the evidence hadn’t pointed that way, and they’d dismissed the possibility, underestimating Billy further.

He looked much like he had in the holographic representation in his _Purgatory_ file — a little thinner, his hair a little shaggier, but still very much the boy next door.  He looked like what someone else might call “the quiet type.”

Billy didn’t look _quiet_ right now — he looked… pleased.

 

 

 

Illustration by Plutokitty

 

“I probably should’ve expected you sooner.  Not sure why I didn’t,” he said, his tone conversational as he maintained the stasis field holding them fast, like flies against flypaper.  “My old man would’ve said that was my own damn fault.  He probably would’ve been right this time.  Figured with the whole Citadel, I could’ve found somewhere to hide.”

“You can’t expect to _hide_ while leaving dead bodies all over the place,” spat Garrus.

“Oh.  Sorry.  Did you think _we_ were having a conversation?”  The energy pouring from his hands shifted and wavered and then began to _press_.  Thena’s armor creaked as the field compressed against them both, and her head felt as if it were being squeezed.  It was getting harder and harder to take a breath.

“Here’s my problem, Shepard.  It’s not your turn yet.  I got more to show you.”  He grinned, and the fact that his smile wasn’t terrifying at all — it was boyish, charming, unassuming — was the most disturbing thing about him.

“ _Why?_ ” she gritted out with a breath she labored to take.

He laughed and shook his head.  “Trying to get me to spill all my secrets like the villain in a bad spy vid, huh?”  He looked at them both a moment, then shrugged as if at their combined rudeness when neither of them answered.  “You don’t even _know_ , do you?  We could start with you taking a shot at me,” he replied, as if that answered everything.  “I don’t know how you feel about people shooting at you, but I don’t let that shit slide.  You start to, and then people start thinking you’re _weak_.  And _you,_ ” he said to Thena as he walked closer to them, “you just had to _mock_ me, didn’t you?  Think you’re so fuckin’ great?  Had to go off and be some big fucking hero, huh?”

“Mock?” Thena managed as Garrus ground out a ragged, “You’re _crazy._ ”

“ _I’m not crazy._ ”  In an instant, Billy’s features transformed — his lip curled back in a furious sneer, his eyes narrowed and his face turned red with an angry flush as he flung one arm out and _threw_ Garrus against a nearby door.  Armor clanged against metal and Garrus let out a grunt with the impact.  _“Don’t fucking call me crazy,_ ” he roared, spittle flying from his lips _._   “And don’t _interrupt_.”

Billy continued walking closer — she could not think of him as Jeremy Delaporte, not now — now Thena heard his voice in the words in the message he’d sent her.  No matter his legal name, he would always be _Billy._  

“You _were_ mocking me,” he said again.  “Getting _famous_ off this war.   You _shot_ me — you don’t _deserve_ to be famous.  But no, everyone just loves you, don’t they?”  His voice went higher and took on a sing-song tone as he chanted, “Shepard’s gonna save us.  Shepard’s gonna send those Reapers packing.  Shepard’s gonna fix everything and we’re all gonna go back home and live happily ever fucking after.”

Suddenly, Jack’s voice grated through the static-laden comm link and into Thena’s ear.  “Shepard.  You copy?  Liara’s freaking the hell out.”

Thena didn’t reply.

“Shepard?” Jack tried again, agitation leaking into her voice.  “ _Shepard._   Come in.  …Fuck.  _Fuck._ ”

“Why the hell do you get the attention?  What the hell have _you_ done?  But no, you get the news vids and the interviews and people don’t even fucking care that _you shot me._   You aren’t a _hero._ You aren’t _special._   You’re just some damn grunt with a gun.”  He grinned, coming closer and closer until he was mere inches away from her.  “And you don’t even have that right now, do you?  Couldn’t shoot me if you wanted to.  How’s it feel to have someone else holding the cards, Shepard?”

“Drop dead, you son of a bitch,” she managed through gritted teeth.

“You first, Thena.”

While keeping Garrus pinned in one stasis field, the steady glow emanating from Billy’s left hand slowly twisted and changed until his arm and most of his torso was covered in what looked like pulsing, arcing lightning.

And then everything _hurt._   As her shields whirred and choked under the onslaught of biotic energy, every nerve-ending running through her body went alive with white-hot pain traveling down her spine and out to her limbs, then down to every digit, the sensation resembling nothing so much as lightning itself — crackling, _searing_ lightning.  The agony of it stole her breath, and had she not been held in place by the stasis field, she’d have doubled over with it.  The urge, the _instinct,_ to shield herself with her arms was too great, and she fought against the field, trembling hard, but the more she fought, the more it hurt, and though she was certain it was her imagination — _hoped_ it was her imagination — she almost thought she could feel the cybernetics interwoven through her body spitting and struggling against an invasion such as this.

“Oh, this is _good_ ,” Billy sneered, his sallow complexion turning ruddy, his eyes brightening and sharpening as he stole more and more of her energy — her _life._ Something warm trickled down to her upper lip and Thena tasted blood.  

The hallway faded to grey and then black.  Then there was nothing at all.

 

###

 

_I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch._

It had been a while since a sentiment like that had burned so clearly, so _brightly_ in Garrus’ mind.  

It had also been a while since he’d been part of something that had gone entirely sideways in less time than it took to _blink._   Liara’s comm chatter had caught his attention — distracted him — and the damned son of a bitch already had the element of surprise on his side.  

And then the door opened and Garrus saw Billy’s red-rimmed eyes and dry, cracked lips — and, oh, he _knew_ the signs of red sand abuse when he saw it.  In that second, he knew — he heard Liara’s frantic exhortations, saw the faintest glow of biotic energy through the doorway.  He _knew._   But everything happened too damn _fast._ His gun was in his hand and then it wasn’t; instead, he’d hit the wall hard enough that he actually _felt_ his brain sloshing around inside his skull. His whole fringe ached with the impact.  

How had they missed this?  They’d focused so much on his damned tech magic, they’d all of them somehow managed to overlook — no, _dismiss_ — the fact that Billy was a goddamn _biotic._  

And Shepard.  Hell, Shepard.  _Thena._   She’d tried to get Billy talking, tried to get him to give them a damn monologue, tried to buy them a little time — all they needed was a little time before Jack or Arturicus called to check their status — but he wouldn’t waste the time they both wanted him to use up.

Shepard and Vakarian.  They’d been in worse messes than this.  This was kid stuff compared to Noveria.  Compared to Ilos. Omega.  Tuchanka — several times, Tuchanka.  Horizon.  The Collector ship.  Compared to _every damn mission_ they’d ever been on together.  And this would be where they screwed up because they’d made the mistake of underestimating their target.

Shepard tried to keep him talking, and as she did, he tried to push against the stasis field to reach for the gun on his back.  The Vindicator was useless on the floor and way out of reach, but the Widow was _right damn there_.  It wasn’t the most subtle weapon, but it was all Garrus had, and damned if he was going to do nothing until backup got there.

But, no, Billy’s biotic energy was shifting and changing right before his eyes.  The tips of his talons were brushing against the Widow, but not enough to grasp, not enough to gain any purchase, and the longer he struggled to get a grip on the weapon, the more infuriated he became, because he _knew_ what billy was doing now.  Reave, Garrus was entirely aware, was a deadly ability for any biotic to possess.  He’d seen the same threads of energy emanate from and surround Samara, and even then he’d known enough to be damn grateful she was on their side.    

As a sniper, he was used to seeing things from a distance; he was accustomed to watching and waiting for the perfect moment to squeeze the trigger.  Shepard charged into the fray, pushed the enemy back with physical force and a shotgun.  He’d never hated being made to watch _more._

Pulsing, draining biotic energy surrounded Shepard, and Garrus watched, his armor creaking, his shields whirring in protest as he pushed harder and harder and _harder_ against the stasis field.  He watched her face contort in agony, watched as the color leeched from her skin.  Garrus watched and remembered the sight of Billy’s last victim, cold and still and grey in the morgue.  He hadn’t wanted Shepard to see how much he’d been unnerved by the sight of the woman — hell, she’d been unnerved enough for both of them.  But now, now as the bastard _stole_ from her to make himself stronger, as her skin grew ashen and her struggles weaker, one thought, one certainty circled his mind, over and over again, with every breath, with every churning whine of his shield emitters, with every silent scream Shepard didn’t have enough breath to give sound:

_I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch._

When Billy had taken all he wanted from her, he let Shepard’s body drop.  She fell in a crumpled heap on the floor, and the sound of it was loud — too loud for the corridor, too loud for his ears.  Loud and wrong and hollow as hell.

“What do you think?” Billy asked him idly.  “Think she’s dead?”

_I think if she is, I’m going to make you suffer.  That’s what I think._

He looked down and nudged her arm with the toe of his boot.  “Might not be,” he said, sending Garrus a sly look.  “That part’s up to you.  Get her to a doctor, she might be okay.  Chase after me instead?  She might not be.”

With that, Billy released the stasis field and sprinted off along the corridor, pelting down the stairs, and out of sight.

Wasting no time at all, Garrus grabbed and holstered the dropped guns, scooped Shepard’s unresisting body up (how was it she felt so light in his arms?) and started off for the shortest possible route back to the _Normandy_.  The comms were clear now and Garrus reached Joker, giving him the heads up that Shepard had been hurt and he needed the medbay prepped and ready by the time he got there.  

Joker, perhaps hearing the urgency in Garrus’ voice even _over_ the words he was saying, didn’t ask questions.

En route to the elevator, Garrus heard shouts — Jack’s cursing among them, gunfire, and the unmistakable thrum of biotic energies clashing against each other, all over the shocked cries and screams of innocent bystanders.  He didn’t have the time or inclination to stop and examine the situation — he barely slowed his pace when he heard Agent Arturicus calling him, running to catch up.

“…Sir?” he blurted, upon seeing Shepard.  “Oh, _shit._   I’ll get on the comm to Huerta.  Let ‘em know you’re coming.”

“You’re gonna do nothing of the sort,” Garrus said shortly, legs propelling him into the elevator which was, thank the spirits, open and unoccupied.  “For starters, Huerta’s too damned crowded with wounded right now.  For another, she goes into Huerta, we get a media circus all over again.  Doc Chakwas on the _Normandy’s_ looking at her first.  Shepard needs anything more than that, it’s Chakwas’ call.  Where’d the bastard go?”

“Jack’s in pursuit.  Doctor T’Soni got through to her and told her you needed backup.”  He paused.  “I’m… sorry we weren’t here sooner.”

“She’s not _dead_ , agent,” he snapped, realizing too late he didn’t know even whether the statement was true or not.  He hadn’t checked for a pulse, hadn’t even stopped to see if she was breathing.  As if his will alone could keep her stable until they reached sickbay.

_Hold on, Shepard.  Hold on._

“I didn’t mean to imply she was, sir.“

“Does Bailey know yet?  That Billy’s a biotic?”

“He does now, sir.”

“Good.  We’ll need to regroup after this.”  _Shepard’s going to want to kick that bastard’s ass after this.  She’s gonna have to wait her damn turn._

The elevator stopped at the docking bay, and Garrus turned to Arturicus.  “Tell Bailey I’ll let him know Shepard’s status as soon as I know anything.  Get the word out to the rest of her squad — most of them were probably on their way to meet up with you in the Lower Wards — and let them know we got new intel and we’re pulling back.  We’ll reconvene on the _Normandy_ , see where the hell this leaves us and what comes next.”

Garrus didn’t wait to hear the C-Sec officer’s response; he was making a beeline for bay D-24.

Chakwas, being Chakwas, met Garrus in the CIC as he came through the airlock.

“What happened?” she demanded, keeping stride with him on the way to the medbay.

“Biotic attack.  Took us both by surprise.  Stasis fields — a little pressure, but nothing we haven’t seen before.  And—” Garrus went suddenly silent when the doctor took his arm and pulled him to a stop, then leaned over and pushed one of Shepard’s eyelids up, then the other, shining a light into her eyes.

“Bloody _reave_ ,” she hissed.  “Come along.  Her nervous system’s taken a hit, and if I’m right, her cybernetics aren’t picking up the slack like they otherwise would.

Once in the medbay, Garrus set Shepard down on a bed.  He tried not to think about how limp and still she was as he wordlessly began removing her armor while the doctor prepped far too many machines and scanners with names he couldn’t remember just then and whose uses that meant very little to him beyond fixing whatever Billy had done to Shepard.

“I’ll need to scan her cybernetics first.  If we can get those back in working order, they’ll help restore and repair the damage he’s done to her nervous system.  She’s not seizing — that’s a damned good sign.”

Seizures.  Garrus didn’t particularly want to think about seizures, even the remotest possibility of them.  He let his hands take over the almost mindless work of unfastening the armor and pulling it free, absolutely _not_ thinking about the reasons why he knew how Shepard’s armor came off and in what order.  

After the first scan, Doctor Chakwas let out a deep breath.  “Her cybernetics _are_ repairing themselves, but slowly.”  She looked up at Garrus.  “She’s going to be out for some time.”

“How long?”

The doctor shrugged.  “I’m not completely sure — I know she’s healing the damage, but from what I can tell, that damage is… significant.  Reave targets the nervous system _and_ damages synthetics.”  She let out a breath.  “I’m not sure he could have chosen something more effective if he’d tried.”

“But Shepard’s going to be all right,” Garrus said, not giving in to the damnable whisper that wormed around in his brain and underneath his plates:  _Isn’t she?_

“Commander Shepard needs time, rest, and the care of a competent physician.”  She paused.  “You made the right choice, bringing her here, Garrus.  Huerta’s overrun and understaffed.  She’ll be all right, but it’s going to take time.”

“How much time?” he asked — time was one thing they didn’t have a lot of.

“That part, I’m afraid, is up to the commander.”


	8. Day Three

The next several hours passed, but slowly.  After losing Billy in the Citadel ductwork, Jack came aboard the _Normandy_ and stormed into the medbay, only to be shooed out and scolded soundly by Doctor Chakwas.  Vega, Ashley, and Cortez had been en route to Kithoi Ward when they’d heard the news over the comms and came barreling in not long after Jack.  Bailey and Arturicus turned up a short while later, both to check up on Shepard in person and follow up with Garrus.  There wasn’t much to tell them; Shepard’s condition was improving, but slowly.  Once the Cerberus cybernetics eventually finished repairing themselves, Doctor Chakwas had told Garrus more than once, Shepard would show more marked improvement.  

It didn’t take much for him to read between the lines: _If you want to help her, get the hell out of here and catch the bastard who did this._

The group of them wound up in Liara’s quarters — it was near enough to the medbay to keep Garrus from pacing, and more than sufficiently kitted out with just the sort of equipment they needed now.  And Liara, whose worry manifested itself as dark blue smudges beneath her eyes, needed something to focus on, to funnel her energy into, as much as Garrus did.  

Given this, it was no surprise at all that she’d compiled a full, unabridged version of Billy’s _Purgatory_ file.

“I thought you said he’d deleted the info,” Bailey said as he scanned one of the datapads Liara was handing out.

“He had,” she answered.  “And he did a thorough job.  But…”

“But he wasn’t counting on having to hide from an information broker,” Garrus said.  Liara nodded.

Bailey let out a little chuckle.  “Information broker?  Hell, a setup like this, you could be the damn Shadow Broker himself.”

Liara’s smile was forced, but Garrus doubted Bailey realized that.  “I’ll take that as a compliment.  In any event, I was able to locate a backup by accessing court, legal, and taxpayer records on his home planet.”

“Taxpayer records?” Arturicus asked.  “Why those?”

“Each planet had to pay off Warden Kuril to keep the criminals in custody,” explained Garrus.  “Otherwise, they’d be released right back where they came from.”

Ashley wasted no time reading the file, scrolling through the text as she asked, “So what did you learn about him?” 

“Well,” Liara began, his name is Jeremy William Delaporte, age 34.  Home planet, New Canton.  He possesses the old L2 implants, which have already been linked to instability and insanity, though it’s difficult to tell if the implants caused the problem, or exacerbated an existing one.  He’d been accepted into an Alliance program for technologically-gifted children — he happened to be a biotic as well, which further explains his inclusion in the program.”

“Any more light shed on those ‘behavioral issues’ that got him kicked out?” Garrus asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes.  His expulsion resulted in a full psych examination, which had also been scrubbed from the files I initially accessed.”

Vega blurted out the question they were all probably thinking.  “What the hell did he _do_?” 

Liara fixed Vega with a level, unwavering look.  “Someone discovered he’d been torturing and killing small animals, then keeping their remains. As trophies.”

Garrus remembered too vividly the look in Billy’s eyes as Thena grew weaker against the stasis field, as the color faded from her face.  He’d watched her avidly _,_ _savoring_ the fact that he was slowly killing her.  “I believe it,” was all he said, then looked up.  “Wait. It was an _Alliance_ program he got booted out of.”  When Liara nodded, Garrus said, “Huh.  He kept telling her she didn’t deserve to be famous.”

“Like it came _easy,_ ” muttered Ashley.

Jack snorted.  “Like she ever fucking _asked_ for it in the first place.”

“There could be an aspect of jealousy in play,” EDI’s disembodied voice offered suddenly.  Commander Bailey and Officer Arturicus both started and looked around. Those who were regulars aboard the _Normandy_ did not.

“Elaborate, EDI,” Liara said.

“Inclusion in the program to which Doctor T’Soni is referring indicates Mr. Delaporte was an exceptionally gifted child.  He is a biotic and appears to be something of a tech-savant.  Comparatively, Commander Shepard, who, while in possession of above average intelligence, demonstrates no hallmarks of what is now associated with superior ability.”

“And she’s the damn hero,” Jack said, leaning back in her chair and stretching her legs out.  “So where the hell does that leave him?”

Garrus said, “He kept telling her she wasn’t anything … _special._ ”

“Implying,” EDI interjected, “that he _is._ Delusions of grandeur are not uncommon among individuals who demonstrate sociopathic—”

“You mean, who are _fucking crazy,_ ” Jack spat, disgusted.

“Tatts ain’t wrong about that,” added Vega.  

Garrus’ eyes slid back toward Jack, who didn’t _comment_ on the nickname, but she was definitely giving Vega a look.  It didn’t _look_ like the sort of look that meant she was going to kick his ass later, but with Jack one could never be too sure.

“From there,” Liara broke in, turning everyone’s attention back to the file, “he ran away from home.  There’s not much here on where he went once becoming a runaway, but he did spend the next several years going into and out of various rehabilitation programs and juvenile detention centers, being sent home after each sentence and running away again afterward.”

“He just kept the cycle going,” Ashley said.  “What makes someone _do_ that?”

Liara sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, clearly exhausted — and from the tone of her voice, Ash’s question was one she’d wondered herself.  “I… have no idea.  But I do know that over time, from what I could tell, he learned to tell the evaluators what they wanted to hear, assuming good behavior long enough to earn him early release or parole.  He knew how to get out of the system; he just didn’t know how to _stay_ out of it.”

“What got him shipped onto the _Purgatory_?” Cortez asked.

Garrus answered him.  “All of it, probably.  He was gaming the system.  If he got caught, he knew how to get out again.”

“That, yes, and various body parts belonging to no fewer than twelve different victims discovered in his apartment when he became a person of interest in a number of missing person cases,” Liara said.  “Which had also been scrubbed from the earlier files I’d accessed.”

Vega blinked.  “Body… _parts_?”  When Liara nodded, he breathed a soft curse.

“So we know he gets off on torturing people,” Jack said.  “How’s that gonna help us find the son of a bitch?”

Garrus shook his head, rubbing at his browplates.  “He said he had more to show her.  That probably means he’s planning more victims.”

Bailey leaned forward in his chair and pressed his fingertips against his eyes.  “Which probably means picking someone who looked like Shepard wasn’t really any sort of endgame after all.”

“Garrus,” Cortez said, “what was it you said he told Shepard?  She wasn’t special?”

Garrus nodded.  “Yeah.  Something about her being just another dumb grunt with a gun—”

 _“Pendejo_ ,” Vega growled.

“And that message he sent the other day,” Cortez continued.  “Something about Shepard not being able to save anyone?”

“Sounds like he’s trying to take her down a few pegs,” Bailey commented.

Jack ran one and over her head, twining her dark ponytail around one finger.  “Because he’s jealous that she’s the hero and he’s not?  All right, so we know he’s crazy.  How do we find him and kick his ass from here to the fuckin’ Perseus Veil?”

“The bitch of it is that now he’s working faster — we got the damn missing person report on Kimberly Desmene _after_ her body was recovered,” Bailey said.

Thirteen million people on the Citadel and a police force stretched too thin — Garrus couldn’t imagine a worse combination.  “With any luck, we’ve bought ourselves some time now.”

“All due respect, Vakarian,” Bailey said, “we haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of _luck_ recently.  I will say, though, between the marketplace apartment and the one in Kithoi Ward, we found more than enough to nail the bastard.  Doc Sarik’s taking a look at some of the evidence, running scans.  Maybe we’ll get something useful out of it.”

“What did you find?” asked Liara.

“Not a lot of personal effects,” Arturicus said, “but some supplies.  Paint, pieces of armor, lots of tech and modification equipment — probably stolen or lifted off dead Cerberus operatives before the bodies were collected.  My men recovered a terminal in the Presidium apartment, too. Not sure what’s on it yet, or if it may have belonged to the apartment’s original owner — he died in the raid, so that’s at least one death we can’t pin on this guy.  He had a hell of a setup there — miniature wireless cams posted outside the door, sending a feed to the terminal we seized.”

 _That’s how he was ready for us — bastard saw us coming._   “I’d like to take a look,” said Garrus.  Truthfully he didn’t _want_ to leave the _Normandy_ until he knew Shepard’s cybernetics had finally kicked in.  But his need to catch this bastard and shut him down, _particularly_ for what he’d done to Shepard, outweighed the desire to stay.  Beyond that, he knew Shepard would want details when she woke, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her he’d spent the time she was out of commission sitting by her bedside and worrying.  

“Whatever you need, Vakarian,” Arturicus replied.  “Some of his effects have been transferred to C-Sec HQ already; the tech guys are probably already all over the terminal.”

“Yeah, I want to take a look at the terminal, and both apartments.  Presidium first, since that’s where he’d been more recently.”

“His place in Kithoi was bad, Garrus,” Jack said, shaking her head.  “Might be better he’s having to work faster if it means he’s not fucking torturing people for days on end.”

Garrus looked sharply at Arturicus.  “That’s what it looked like he’d been doing?”

The agent nodded.  “It’s just a guess, but it looks like once he started fixating on Commander Shepard, he gained more… focus.”

“He was bored before,” Liara murmured.  When several heads swiveled her way, she shrugged.  “It makes sense in a way, doesn’t it?  If he truly is a savant, then technology provides no challenge for him.  He was accepted into the Alliance’s program, but kicked out—”

“For being a vicious little shithead,” Jack snarled.

“I think Liara’s on to something,” said Ashley, tucking the datapad under one arm, then crossing both over her chest.  “But what if he wasn’t learning what he _wanted_ to be learning?

Liara narrowed her eyes, nodding slowly.  “You mean, what if he _wanted_ to learn how to subvert and dominate?  And suppose… just suppose the earlier victims were a way to pass the time?  He continued to mark them with Shepard’s name, but doesn’t it make sense in a way that his behavior would become more focused once the object of his fixation made an appearance?”

EDI’s voice filled the room once more.  “Doctor T’Soni makes an excellent point.”

“So maybe there _is_ an endgame in the works — it’s just that Billy’s the only one who knows the rules,” Bailey said.

At that, Garrus pushed out of his seat.  For now, their next steps were clear.  “Sounds like we’ve got to find his rule-book.”

 

###

 

Thena lay still.  It was difficult to think of her as _Shepard_ right now.  She would be Shepard again later, after she healed, after she woke, when she was upright and armed and sending him that crooked grin of hers that never brought him anything but a whole lot of fantastic trouble — but right now, she was Thena.  Thena was human and breathing too slowly and too damn pale by half.  Chakwas had attached what looked like every type of sensor in existence to her, and all of them were whirring and beeping softly. 

“Any change?” he asked, sitting in the chair next to her bed and resisting the urge to take her hand in his, for the good that did him.  He resisted for all of five seconds.  Maybe three.  Her hand was cool and dry, the fingers slack — nothing like the way she’d clasped his hand on Menae.  Nothing like Shepard at all.  His Shepard was tight embraces and firm handshakes; there was nothing midway about her, no half-measures.  Impatience and fire and determination, equal parts Graal and Widow, force and finesse, toughness and empathy.  She wasn’t meant to be quiet and still, not like this.  

“There have been some improvements, yes,” the doctor said, checking the various readouts on the machines.  “Her implants aren’t quite limping along anymore — they’ve mostly repaired themselves and have begun working on her.  Brain activity is picking up — I suspect either the commander is dreaming, or she’s using the power of her mind to intimidate her implants into speeding up the healing process.”

“I’m gonna hope it’s the latter.”  He looked down at her face, and ran the back of one talon along her cheek.  She was warm, at least — she wasn’t as ashen as she’d looked before.  She was healing — slowly — but she was _healing_.  

He leaned down to murmur in her ear.  “Gonna see about catching that son of a bitch.  You take care of things here, okay?”

Thena’s only response was a slow breath in and out.  

It was good enough.  It would have to be.

 

###

 

Most of the tech had been dismantled and transferred to C-Sec, but Garrus started off at the apartment in the Presidium anyway.  The space had been scanned for DNA and fingerprints, but most of what had been recovered belonged to the apartment’s previous owner, while only trace amounts belonged to Billy.  Doctor Sarik had scans of what he was quite certain would turn out to be Kimberly Desmene’s hair and shreds from what was likely the still-unidentified turian’s plates.

And that all would have been great, if they’d only been trying to build a case against Billy.  But they weren’t.  They were trying to _find him._

He walked slowly around the apartment — it _was_ nice, and for what wasn’t the first time Garrus thought about what a damn waste it was to have so many empty, vacant spaces while the docks were getting more overcrowded by the day.  The reality of it was the people who’d lived in the abandoned apartments weren’t coming back any time soon.  And yet, it was hard to ignore or overlook the fact that not all of the occupants had left willingly.  Some of the places he and Shepard searched earlier had grisly reminders of the Cerberus invasion — bloody handprints smeared across pristine floors, streaks of matter — sometimes grey, sometimes blue — across walls or refrigerator doors or lodged messily in holo-keyboards like insects suspended in tree sap.  They weren’t peoples’ homes anymore; they were crime scenes.

What if that was how Billy drew in his victims — suppose he bragged that he’d appropriated an abandoned apartment and made it his own?  Maybe he promised to show them how to get past C-Sec, how to choose a locale where no one would notice a new neighbor, how to hack open the doors…

 _Then he brought them here and killed them,_ Garrus thought darkly, looking around him.  He could almost see the way it had played out — a stasis field to hold them still, and maybe adding compression to the stasis field to prevent his victims from taking a full enough breath to call for help.  Strangulation — or a broken neck — weren’t typically _loud_ methods to kill someone.  Then he used a tactical cloak to get him past curious onlookers.  The modified cloak hadn’t been on the turian, though — just the human victim, unless he used the same cloak for both, then _leaving_ it on the human victim.

_Thinking too much on the how, Vakarian.  We even have a handle on the why.  Better question to ask right now is, “Who’s next?”_

It was an impossible question to answer, of course.  He stopped by a wide bay window, overlooking the Presidium’s fountain.  It was a hell of a view.  He wondered if Billy had stood here and looked at that spot and decided it was the ideal place to stage the discovery of Thena Shepard’s corpse.  Billy was a planner.  That much was making itself painfully evident.

_Here’s my problem, Shepard.  It’s not your turn yet.  I got more to show you._

Garrus frowned, drumming his fingers against the leg of his hardsuit as he stood lost in thought.  _Bastard’s figuring more ways to make her suffer, more ways to remind her she can’t save everyone.  More attempts to dismantle the hero and make her…_   On that thought, he went stock-still in front of the window.

 _Why the hell do you get the attention?  What the hell have_ you _done?  But no, you get the news vids and the interviews and people don’t even fucking care that_ you shot me _.  You aren’t a_ hero _.  You aren’t_ special _. You’re just some damn grunt with a gun._

Not special.  Not a hero.

He recalled Shepard, looking discomfited as she recalled Allers’ interview request:  _She… wants people to know the person behind the hero, whatever that’s supposed to mean._

Crap. _Crap._

Long strides propelling him, Garrus turned on his heel and left the apartment, and was more than halfway to the elevator when his comm link chirped.

“Vakarian.  Bailey here,” the voice in his ear said.

“Just the man I wanted to talk to.  I’m on my way over to the Embassy offices right now.”

“Might want to take a detour, son. Little further south.  I’m down in the morgue with Sarik.”

Garrus’ gut plummeted.  “ _Dammit._   Don’t tell me.”

Bailey’s hard exhale came across laden with static that made Garrus’ ears hurt.  “Wish I didn’t have to.”

“He’s in the goddamn ducts,” Garrus growled, reaching the elevator and sending it down into the bowels of the Citadel.  “How the hell did he pull this off?”

“Time of death was about oh-five-hundred this morning.  He used another one of those damn modded cloaks.”

“We’re behind him.  We’re too _goddamn_ far behind him.”  He ground out a swear through gritted teeth, then said, “Tell Sarik to figure out just how much of a window there is between the times of death for each victim.”

“Got something you want to share with the rest of the class, Vakarian?”

“I’ve got a hunch, Bailey.  Not saying more than that.  Not yet.  I’m on my way.”

As the elevator sank further and further down into the depths of the Citadel, Garrus kept turning over Billy’s words in his head.  Assuming Liara was correct — and he didn’t have any reason to discount her theory — if Billy had been killing people simply because he was bored, and it was Shepard’s increased popularity that pushed him into fixating on her, then he would continue to fixate on her.  And that didn’t mean anything good for the rest of them.

He knew by now where Doctor Sarik would be, and if anything slowed Garrus’ steps through the door, it was not knowing what the hell Billy had done now, and still knowing enough to dread the outcome, no matter what.  Sure enough, when he walked in there was a woman on a steel table.  Again, her hair was Shepard’s blue-black shade.  But this woman looked nothing like Kimberly Desmene had.

The hair was longer, for one.  Garrus wasn’t sure why he noticed that, of all things, aside from the fact that he tended to notice things about Shepard, and these women were meant to look like— to _represent_ Shepard.  For another, a jagged pattern of lines and angles had been cut into her face, and the sight of it threw Garrus back to Omega, looking down his scope at too many mercs, knowing he was damn near out of stims and rations.  He remembered the sight of N7 armor, blue eyes and black hair and a face he hadn’t seen for two years.  A face that had been strangely scarred.

Like this face.

The realization hit Garrus with all the force of a bolt of lightning: _He’s moving backwards._ He thought hard, back to the mission aboard the _Purgatory_.  He remembered how Shepard’s scars had faded over time, but he couldn’t remember exactly when they’d started, or if they’d still been visible on that mission.  Even if they had, he wasn’t sure how likely it would be that Billy would remember such a detail, or whether he’d have gotten close enough to Shepard to see the scarring.  Even Jack’s copied tattoos had lacked detail.

_But no, you get the news vids and the interviews…_

Were there vids of Shepard on the extranet, showing her with the scars left by Project Lazarus?  The marks hadn’t lasted long — he still recalled Shepard’s evident obsession with model ships and the crooked little smile she wore while she assembled them in her quarters, the tip of her tongue sticking out between her lips as she concentrated, insisting the models _relaxed_ her, and _Hey, don’t look at me. Doc Chakwas said I needed to de-stress and find positive outlets._

_So you’re playing with toys?_

_This isn’t a toy, Vakarian.  This is a 1/1000 scale model of the Destiny Ascension._

_Yeah?  And what are you gonna do with it when you’re done?_

_Probably let it get crushed by my 1/1000 scale model of Sovereign._

“So, Vakarian.”  Bailey’s words yanked Garrus from the memory and back to the morgue.  “You said something about a hunch?”

“I’ll know more once I take a look at that terminal.  What do we know about the victim?”

“Let Sarik tell you what we’ve learned about Billy first.”

“It’s probably no surprise,” the medical examiner said, fixing Garrus with his dark gaze, “that we’ve identified one of the substances the killer uses to be red sand.”

“Damn,” muttered Garrus.  “Had a bad feeling he used it.”

“Statistically speaking, if a biotic is going to make use of a controlled substance, red sand’s propensity for augmenting their abilities makes it the likeliest possibility.  He also uses a number of other recreational drugs, but red sand showed up the strongest in his toxicology report.”

“So do you think he’s naturally powerful, or he’s using red sand to give himself a boost?” Garrus asked Bailey and Sarik.

“There’s no way to tell.  I’d need to run a full scan to comprehend the extent of his abilities as well as the extent to which the drug amplifies his natural talents.”

“Still,” Bailey pointed out, “good information to have.”  He nodded at the body.  “As for our newest, her name’s Tina Matsu, age 30.  Another refugee,” Doctor Sarik read from a nearby datapad.  “But someone _had_ filed a report with C-Sec reporting her missing, so it would appear the people in the refugee camps are beginning to form… groups, to look out for one another.”

Bailey let out a long, deep sigh, running a hand across his face and back over his hair.  Garrus was no expert at judging the age of humans, but the commander suddenly looked old beyond his years. “That’s good, but it’s a damn shame things had to come to this for it to happen.”

“So, how many hours between the missing person report and the time of death?”

Doctor Sarik glanced at the datapad again before answering.  “Approximately eight hours.”

Garrus narrowed his eyes, his brain working furiously to put the pieces together.  “So he set the body up somewhere with another modded cloak— wait.  Where _was_ the body discovered?”

Sarik and Bailey exchanged a meaningful look.  Garrus’ stomach clenched; whatever the meaning was, it wasn’t good.  “The cloak expired on its own, from what witness reports are telling us,” the commander answered, handing him another datapad.  “The body was discovered in the Presidium.  On the Petitioners’ Stage.”

It was hard to keep his jaw from dropping at that piece of news.  “ _What?_ ” He asked, taking the ‘pad; the holo-image glowing up at him showed Garrus precisely that.  The Petitioners’ Stage with a lone figure standing at the center, leaning against the railing, addressing an absent Council.  And still, Garrus couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.  The body had been propped up to look as if it were standing, but the effect was… _wrong._   The head lolled forward and the arms…  “How did he… _do_ this?”

“Packing tape around the elbow and knee joints, apparently,” Bailey muttered, taking no pains to hide his disgust.  “The armor did the rest.”

“Armor too, huh?  Painted, like the others?”

“Yep.”

He looked harder at the commander.  “What color?”

“Kind of a dark grey.  Why?  Don’t suppose it plays into that hunch you were talking about?”

“As a matter of fact, it does.”  He looked over at Doctor Sarik.  “Anything unusual about this victim?”

Sarik shook his head slowly, huge eyes blinking as he thought.  “Not especially.  The cause of death has been exactly the same in every case, save the turian.  I did find it somewhat odd he’d used a blade on the woman’s face, instead of paint—”

Garrus shook his head as he interrupted the medical examiner.  “He’s mimicking scars, doc.  Not tattoos, not clan markings. Scars.”

“Scars?” Bailey asked, shaking his head.  “I don’t remember Shepard having any scars like that.”

Garrus gave the datapad back to Bailey.  It was time to pay a visit to C-Sec headquarters and some seized tech.  “Not many people do, Commander.”

Getting away from the morgue was… refreshing.  Garrus hadn’t had much call to spend time there even when he’d been with C-Sec, but after so many visits over such a short time, the place was starting to get to him.  Every trip down there meant another missed opportunity to take care of this scumbag.  Every visit to the morgue meant another person was dead.  Another failure.  It didn’t matter if Billy kept changing the game, it still counted as a failure in Garrus’ book.

The C-Sec wing still looked like a warzone.  It looked as though a few enterprising individuals had started to clean the blood spatters from the walls, leaving faint smears of red and green and blue, rubbed away until they were faint echoes of color, whispered reminders of what had happened down here.  A fresh coat of paint would go up at some point, but not yet — later, when things had calmed down.  Later.  Maybe after the war, if there was an “after the war” to speak of.  _Later._

_Maybe._

He found the room currently housing everything C-Sec had seized from Billy’s apartments, and it looked like nothing so much as a quarian’s dream come true.  All of the pieces of collected and assorted tech were spread out on a wide table, neatly arranged and tagged.  The terminal was in a corner, and as Garrus walked straight to it, bypassing everything else — minuscule cameras, pieces of Cerberus armor, a disassembled visor; wires, circuits, a deactivated omni-tool; a modding torch, a deactivated repair droid, and a collection of stolen tactical cloaks, all in various stages of disassembly and reassembly.  There was plenty there, and plenty of it useful, but not quite what he was _looking_ for.

The terminal fired up without so much as a stutter.  It was a high-end model — clearly property of the apartment’s previous owner — and had, at one point, been password-protected, but no longer, courtesy of the C-Sec tech team, no doubt.  The terminal’s contents were soon spread out before Garrus, not unlike the items on the table just behind him.  There were messages to and from the previous owner, but nothing else as far as communication went; if Billy was using the terminal to send messages, he was being cagey about it.  In fact, Billy hadn’t deleted _any_ of the previous data; the man’s whole life was here: images and memories; work and reminders to himself; extranet bookmarks and favorite vids — it was all there, and Billy had just built on top of it, adding his own data to the existing files, stepping into and assuming the terminal like he’d stepped into and assumed the apartment.

Not what he would’ve expected from a supposed tech savant, but there was an excellent chance he hadn’t planned on staying there very long anyway.

Finally, Garrus found what he was looking for.  Vids — four of them — were tucked in with other files, easy to overlook, but for the time-stamp.  They’d all been downloaded the day the first Shepard lookalike showed up.  If Garrus’ guess was right, twelve, maybe eighteen hours _before_ she showed up.

Garrus opened the first vid and Diana Allers’ face flickered into existence on the holomonitor.  

 _“Commander Thena Shepard.  She’s been called a hero by most, a savior by some, and disgraced by others.  We know she is a survivor — at sixteen she was orphaned on Mindoir after a raid by batarian slavers; later in her career she was the only Marine to walk away from the massacre on Akuze when thresher maws decimated her entire platoon.  There are rumors she has, in fact, survived death itself.  But who can separate rumor from fact?  And who_ is _Commander Shepard, anyway?  This is Diana Allers reporting aboard the_ Normandy _, and I’ll be guiding you through a unique retrospective on the life and times of Commander Thena Shepard.  Starting with the Reapers’ attack on Earth, join me as we peel back the layers and get to know the woman — the_ human _— behind this Alliance hero—”_

He killed the playback.  Diana Allers’ voice went silent, her face disappeared as the screen went dark again.  Allers was telling Shepard’s story backward.  And so was Billy.  

Garrus was already on his feet and heading back to the _Normandy_ when he got on the comm to Bailey, to tell the commander what he’d found.

“You’re sure that’s his game, Vakarian?” Bailey’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Sure enough that I’m on my way down to Diana Allers now to get her to pull the final segment.  He’s working backwards, Bailey.”

“So what the hell was he trying to with the earlier two victims?  Practice swings?”

Garrus shook his head, even though Bailey wasn’t there to see it.  “Narrowing the scope, I think.  Hell, he might’ve kept on that same path if Allers hadn’t aired the bio-vids.  Makes a sort of sense, though.”

“He’s trying to get her attention, getting more and more personal with each strike?  Yeah, I’d say it’s a twisted sort of sense, but there’s some sense there.”  Bailey exhaled hard.  “All right.  If he’s watched that vid, looks like we’ve got our window.  Since we got that ID, we’ve been circulating his image.  You find out what you can from Allers and I’ll get some men out.  If he’s in the ducts he’s not going to have the same access as he had before.  Between that and his face being plastered across every news kiosk from here to the top of the damn Presidium, that should be enough to slow him down until we find him.  I’m not ready to assume anything yet, though.”

“If he saw us coming, he’d have had plenty of time to grab some credits and some smaller pieces of equipment,” Garrus added.  At the very least, Billy could have stashed a few tactical cloaks and signal jammers into his pockets.  

“That’s what I mean when I say I don’t want to assume anything.”  Bailey paused.  “Well, anything but the worst.”

“Welcome to the club, Commander.”

Garrus found Diana Allers in the mess hall, otherwise deserted, a cup of black coffee cradled between her hands.  She looked up as Garrus approached, and a keen intelligence seemed to snap awake in her eyes when he sat down across from her.

“You’ve got something,” she said without preamble.  “An ID yet?”

Garrus nodded once, then leaned forward, resting forearms against the table.  “You’ve got to pull your Shepard biography.”

Allers blinked once and started to shake her head — either in confusion or outright denial — then froze mid-shake.  “What did you find?”

“Your bio-vid series on a terminal seized from one of the killer’s bolt holes,” he replied in an undertone.

Some of the color faded from her cheeks.  “Shit,” she breathed.  

If Garrus were going to be honest with himself — and he usually was, excepting those times when honesty from himself was too damned uncomfortable — he’d been suspecting for some time that Allers played a part in this.  But she was a woman with clearance and credentials — and a hell of a lot to lose if it ever turned out she’d colluded with a murdering, escaped convict.  But still the suspicion lingered just below the surface, and for a while now Garrus had been ready, watching her carefully for tells, for _something._   He had something now: Allers was just as shocked as Garrus had been.  However much of an annoyance and imposition Shepard considered her, Allers didn’t have a hand in _this._

“How many segments are there?” Garrus asked her.

Allers’ reply sounded strangely distant, as if she were still coming to grips with the fact that a killer was using her work to victimize and slaughter the very people she was trying to reach with her story.  “Four.  The final segment airs tomorrow.”

“He’s got them all.”

She sat up straighter and _stared_ at him, going even paler.  “That’s not possible.”

“Why?”

“Because the fourth segment isn’t supposed to air until _tomorrow._   Features get uploaded into a queue.  It shouldn’t even be _possible_ to tamper with it before it’s released for upload.”

“Don’t know how to tell you this, Allers, but he downloaded all four segments at once.  _How_ he did it isn’t important to me right now.  Fact is, _he did._   And I’ve been a little too busy for vids lately, so you’re gonna have to tell me what kind of info he’s got.”

She took another drink from her cup, then pressed her fingertips to her eyes and rubbed hard.  “Common stuff.  I started with what everyone already knows and then—”

“Started telling the story backward,” Garrus finished for her.

She narrowed her eyes at him, cocking her head.  “I thought you said you hadn’t seen the bio.”

Garrus let out a short burst of mirthless laughter.  “No. Just been viewing the bodies.  So what’s next?”

“The third segment was released today — Saren.  Shepard’s induction into the Spectres.  Akuze.  The early days of her military career.  The fourth segment is her childhood — growing up on Mindoir, family life — what kind of student she was, that sort of thing.”

“So he knows her whole life.”  And what the hell would Billy do after he ran out of vids?

Garrus wasn’t of a mind to wait and find out.

 

###

 

Given the _Normandy’s_ superior security, Garrus, Bailey, Liara and Jack all reconvened in Liara’s quarters.  Vega, Cortez, Ashley and a small force of marines were assisting Agent Arturicus — and between circulating Billy’s image, maintaining calm, _and_ beginning a search of the Citadel’s maintenance ducts, the C-Sec agent needed all the help he could get.

“So the next phase,” Liara said, gesturing at a scene from Shepard’s biography, frozen on the monitor, “is this?”  

The scene in question was a holographic image of a much younger Shepard, just after the Council had granted her Spectre status.  Shepard, looking reserved — if you managed not to notice the quietly proud lift of her chin — next to then-Captain Anderson, who’d put on display all of the pride Thena wasn’t willing to show.  Behind them and off to the right stood Udina, looking every inch the smug bastard.  It had been spliced from one of Emily Wong’s features, Garrus was almost certain, not that it mattered.  His own memory of the moment matched the image exactly.

“The next phase if we don’t catch him,” Garrus corrected her.

“And if,” Bailey interjected, “he doesn’t change his MO again.  And he might, now he knows we’re on to him.  If he’s lookin’ to make Shepard hurt, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Liara sent Garrus a brief but puzzled look, but before either of them could say anything, Jack said, “There’s more than one way to fuck with Shepard.”

“Exactly,” Bailey said.  “And there’s a damn good chance, if we’re making it harder for him to hunt refugees, Billy might try doing some real damage to the people who mean something to Commander Shepard, instead of dressing it up to make it look like he had.”

Garrus nearly laughed out loud, but Bailey looked deadly serious.  “You… actually believe he might try and target… one of us?”

The commander shrugged.  “If he’s getting desperate, I don’t think we can discount anything this bastard _might_ do.”

At this point, for all that Garrus wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the idea that Billy might actually _go after_ one of Shepard’s crew, the reality was that they didn’t know where he was, didn’t know what he was planning next, and didn’t know how he was going to improvise now that they were on to him.  “Fine,” he said.  “ _Normandy_ crew members with business on the Citadel don’t leave the ship alone.  Easy enough.”

There was little to discuss beyond that.  Bailey intended to watch the bio-vid series.  Liara made arrangements with Bailey to take a closer look at the terminal.  There was little proving helpful from the rest of the seized tech — they weren’t looking for evidence (they had plenty of that), they were looking for _clues._   And clues, especially clues giving any information regarding Billy’s whereabouts, were few and far between right now.  There were pieces of things that could have eventually become another modded cloak, but nothing that gave them any sort of definitive direction.  Garrus hated not having direction.  There were few things worse than searching out an enemy in your scope, _knowing_ they were just outside of your line of sight.  That left you… essentially blind.

_I hate being blind._

The meeting dispersed, leaving Garrus feeling more restless, more annoyed, more _impatient_ than ever.  They had a timetable now, and no way to guess what it was.  Hell of a thing, to know you’re running out of time to make a difference, and not having the first idea where to _start._   If the Citadel hadn’t been so damned huge, that’d be one thing.  And if he didn’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that calling the ductwork “labyrinthine” was an understatement roughly as large as the Citadel itself, he’d have been combing every damn ward, every damn air-shaft _looking_ for the son of a bitch.

 _And, hell, I told Shepard not to give in to impatience,_ he thought darkly, crossing the ship and stopping at the med bay window.  Shepard was where he’d left her, pale and unconscious.  A glance at his visor told him — though it hardly seemed possible — that it had been upwards of eight hours since he’d left her here.  Plenty of time for her to wake up.  Except she hadn’t.  

Damn it.

“So,” drawled a voice from behind him.  Garrus didn’t have to turn and look; he knew all of Jack’s particular inflections by this point.  But as she came up beside him at the window, he saw she was eyeing him far too shrewdly for his taste.  “The _Normandy’s_ got a buddy-system now, huh?”  She followed his gaze and watched Shepard a moment before speaking up again.  “Well.  I gotta say, I think the Girl Scout would approve.”

“You get a hell of a kick out of calling her that,” he said, never pulling his eyes from the window.

Jack made a noncommittal noise.  “She gets a kick out of hearing it.  Prob’ly because she knows it’s true.  Anyway, about this two-by-two crap—”

“Jack, it’s—”

“It’s gonna go for you too, Garrus.  So don’t try pulling any of that hard-ass turian bitter-ex-cop bullshit with me.”  

If any member of the _Normandy_ crew — past or present — was going to knock him speechless, Jack would have been Garrus’ _last_ guess.  But there she was.  And there _he_ was, without any snappy reply.  The longer he went without saying anything, the more smug Jack looked.

“Why, Jack,” he said, finally, “I didn’t know you cared.”

Her reply, such as it was, was little more than a derisive snort.  “Don’t flatter yourself.”  A beat of silence passed.  Then another.  And _another_.  Then, finally: “You weren’t there for all of it, Garrus.  You didn’t see her face when Bailey showed her that dead turian.”  She crossed her arms and frowned, still watching Shepard through the glass.  “I know we’re good.  You don’t do even half the shit we did without being _good._   And I know we’re gonna kick this fucker in the nuts so hard he’s gonna have a permanent lump in his throat.  Still…”  Jack trailed off, her frown deepening into a scowl.

It wasn’t hard to guess what she was trying to say; the sentiment had been circling around his head for longer than he cared to admit by now.  “I know.  _Good_ isn’t enough,” he said. “We’ve gotta be smart, too.  I wouldn’t say no to some luck, either.”

“Garrus, our luck usually blows.”

Jack… had a point there.  “All right.  I wouldn’t say no to some _good_ luck, for a change.”

“Who the hell would?”  She gave him a slap on the shoulder and began walking for the elevator.  As she went, Jack called back to him over her shoulder, saying far too loud for Garrus’ taste,  “Now quit staring through the window like some lost fucking puppy.  It’s embarrassing.”

Well.  There was no arguing her point there.  Mostly because she wasn’t there to argue it _with._   Blowing out a breath, Garrus went around the corner and into the med-bay.  Doctor Chakwas looked up from her terminal as he walked in.

“How goes the investigation?” she asked.  

“Slowly,” he replied, pulling a chair over to Shepard’s bed and settling down in it.  “How’s she doing?”

Chakwas pushed up from her chair and joined him at the bedside, briefly checking scans and readouts as she answered.  “She’s improving — and at a rate I’m far more pleased with.  Her cybernetics have repaired themselves, and they’ve made significant progress repairing the damage to her nervous system.”

“She wake up at all yet?”

The doctor gave a quick shake of her head.  “Not yet, though her brain activity has been steadily increasing.  At this point, the cybernetics are overriding Shepard herself until the damage is healed.”

“And then they’ll, what, reboot?”

“Something like that, yes.  Her state right now bears a strong resemblance to someone in the midst of a deep REM sleep.”  She read something off Garrus’ expression and added, “I imagine she’ll be waking sooner rather than later, if you’d prefer to stick around.”

Though Doctor Chakwas had plenty of beds available in the med-bay, and one of them ready for Garrus if he wanted it, he stretched out in his chair and pulled up his omni-tool, reviewing the case file notes, maps of the Citadel and schematics of the ductwork and maintenance tunnels.  When Chakwas retired for the night, she dimmed the lights, though Garrus continued to read by the orange glow of his omni-tool.  Shepard’s breathing was slow and rhythmic — the longer he focused on and tried to make sense of the ductwork schematics, the more he realized his own breathing was gradually slowing to match hers.  Each blink of his eyes lasted longer and longer as he scrutinized the Citadel’s multiple levels, the twists and turns and sudden drop-offs of the ventilation system.  And as each blink lasted longer, his mind turned over all the places Billy could possibly be hiding when he had the whole Citadel to hide _in._

Garrus barely even heard the soft hum of energy going silent as the omni-tool timed out and switched off.


	9. Day Four

The _Normandy_ was quiet when it was docked.  Such an easy thing to overlook, until you started to take notice of the silence, of the subtle differences, and then those differences took over everything else until all you could _hear_ was silence, until all you could feel was the steadiness underfoot and not the subtle but constant changes in gravity as dampeners worked and shifted to keep everything — and every _one_ — upright.

No.  Not completely quiet.  But not the normal sounds of a ship in flight, either.  

Slow beeps in time with her heartbeat.  The soft, faraway sound of something mechanical whirring quietly.  An antiseptic smell.

Another noise.  Organic.

Breathing.  Someone’s breaths not her own.

Thena’s eyes felt gummy as she pried them open.  A wave of exhaustion washed over her at the effort and her lids closed again, but the noise didn’t fade; if anything, the beeps grew sharper and the whirring grew clearer.  She tried again.  The med-bay.  Darker than it ought to have been, which meant Chakwas was getting some rest — much needed, if Thena’s guess was right.  She turned her head a fraction, making out Garrus’ silhouette.  He was asleep in a chair, his head tipped forward, chin resting against his chest.  It was his breathing she’d heard.

No, not his breathing.  His _snoring._

She lay her head back against the pillow, closing her eyes again as the memory of what happened sharpened and cleared and snapped into place.  She wiggled her toes and flexed her fingers, even as the memories of every empty apartment came back to her, over and over again until they found the one that _wasn’t_ empty.

They hadn’t been prepared.  _She_ hadn’t been prepared.

_Fool me once, you son of a bitch, shame on you.  And I’m not giving you the chance to fool me twice._

She let herself wake slowly; it was early, she knew that, and if Garrus was asleep in a damn _chair,_ he had to be tired.  But the more alert Thena became, the more questions she had, each of them forming like soap bubbles in her mind, sliding and floating and pressing against the inside of her skull, demanding her attention, demanding _answers._   Answers she didn’t have.  Not yet, anyway.

Pushing herself up slowly, to say nothing of carefully, Thena reached over and took Garrus’ hand, smiling faintly when his fingers tightened spasmodically around hers before relaxing.  With her other hand, she carefully activated his omni-tool.  Peering at the date and time on the display, Thena discovered she hadn’t been out a full 24 hours — a relief, but still a lot of time to account for.

Then a rough, gravelly voice came from her left.  “Something I can help you with, Shepard?”

She looked up to find Garrus awake and watching her with amusement — and relief — that wasn’t hidden in the least by the dimness of the room.  She saw it in the way he seemed to examine every inch of her face, felt it in the way his hands took one of hers and squeezed.  “Sorry I woke you.”

He breathed a soft chuckle.  “I bet you are.  Don’t tell me you’re so bad at recuperation that you’re not above accessing your boyfriend’s omni-tool while he’s _sleeping_.”

“I was hoping I could figure out how long I was out of commission without waking my boyfriend _up._ ”

“Ah. Not quite a full day and still a good…” he looked down at the omni-tool display, “eighteen hours longer than I’d like.”  He sat up a bit more and leaned closer.  “I should get Chakwas.  You had us scared good, Shepard.”  

The way he said _us_ sounded a whole lot like _me._

“Don’t wake Chakwas yet.  Tell me what happened first.”  Garrus was shaking his head even before she’d finished asking the question, but Thena held on tighter to his hand.  “Tell me, Garrus.”  

His reaction was enough to tell her that they hadn’t caught Billy, that was for damn sure.  Then, slowly, the story began coming out.  Billy in the ducts.  Another victim.  And then, finally, what Garrus clearly saw as the worst news of all:  Allers’ biography vid series.  He rubbed tiredly at his browplates, saying, “Allers insists there was no way he could’ve hacked it, but…”

“But given some of the stuff we’ve seen, you and I know better than to underestimate him now?”

“Something like that.”  His hand went from his browplates and up along his fringe.  “The hacking bothers me less than _what_ he hacked.  He’s made this personal, Shepard.  He _knows_ you now.”

Thena shook her head.  “He made it personal when he started carving my name in people.  This…”  She blew out a soft breath of disbelieving laughter.  “He wants to hurt me.  I get that.  He wants to make me second-guess myself, bring me down a few pegs.  I get that, too.  And if he’s already seen the whole damn bio, and he’s _waiting_ to reveal his latest victim until after the vid’s been aired?  Then I know he doesn’t just want to take me down — he wants to kill any faith anyone _else_ happens to have in me, too.  And if he thinks I’m going to let him to _ruin me_ by hurting people who had nothing to do with this war, who had nothing to do with whatever bad luck he’s encountered since escaping the _Purgatory_?  If that’s what he thinks, then it sounds like Billy’s been doing some underestimating of his own.”

“Shepard—”

“I want out of this bed, Garrus.”  She started pushing the covers back, only to have Garrus’ hands come down on her forearms.  He was standing now, looming over her.

“Shepard, _calm down._ ”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because—”

“Because if you don’t,” Doctor Chakwas interrupted, striding briskly into the infirmary, “you’re going to bloody well _short out_ my equipment.  Good to see you awake, Commander, but you won’t be getting out of that bed on anyone’s orders but mine. Are we quite clear?”

True to her word, it was two very long hours before Chakwas cleared Thena for duty.  Two hours filled with poking and prodding, tests, scans, and then more tests and scans, and at least half a dozen warnings and admonitions before the doctor was fully satisfied that the Cerberus cybernetics had repaired themselves fully and had likewise healed the organic damage Billy had done.  Two hours that included the longest, hottest shower Thena had taken in recent memory.

“I’d also recommend you improve upon your armor,” Chakwas told her as she read over the last batch of scan results.  “If you’ve anything that would stand up more to biotic attacks, all the better.”  She made a soft _hmm_ sound.  “Well, as far as I can tell, you’re every inch as fit for duty as you’ve ever been.  I don’t expect it, but should you experience tremors, blurred vision, or headaches, I want you to return to the _Normandy_ immediately.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Chakwas sent Garrus a sidelong glance.  “See that she does.”

Garrus — and she’d never thought of him as a _traitor_ before now — managed to turn his chuckle into a cough.  “Sure thing, doc.”

###

It wasn’t until they were suited up and alone in the airlock that Garrus turned to her, saying, “You sure you’re up to this, Shepard?”

“Oh, I’m up to it all right.”   And she was.  Aside from a lingering stiffness, which she was sure had more to do with lying in an uncomfortable bed for fifteen hours straight, Thena felt as solid and steady as she ever had.  “I’m up to it, and I’m ready to finish it.”

But Garrus didn’t say anything more — not right away, at any rate, which made her wonder what he was holding back.  Then, “All right.  Where do you want to start?”

The answer was obvious as far as she was concerned.  If Billy had gone to ground, there was only one place _to_ start.  “The ducts.  I haven’t been down there in almost fifteen years.  I know a lot’s changed on the Citadel — time to see how deep those changes go.”

“All right.  Far as I know, Bailey’s still got men searching the ducts.  If they managed to find anything, he would have called, so they’re probably still down there.  Which way…”  He hesitated, but only briefly.  “How… do you want to get down there?”

“What, are you asking if I had a secret entrance down to the ducts, Vakarian?”

He canted his head and narrowed his eyes shrewdly.  “I’m asking because I wouldn’t be surprised if you _did._ ”

As it happened, there was a time when Thena had known a number of ways into and out of the maintenance system — and had made a number of hasty getaways, back in the day.  “Something like that, I guess.  But with the rebuilding that happened after Sovereign’s attack, I doubt any of them still exist.  Which route did Bailey’s men take?”

“Jack and Arturicus witnessed Billy disappearing down a shaft by the Presidium marketplace.  Jack pursued, but lost him after a few turns.”

“ _Jack_ lost him?”  She swore under her breath.  “He knows this place better than we’ve been giving him credit for.”

“And he was hopped up on red sand at the time.  Gave the bastard an edge.”

“Red sand, huh?  Sarik confirmed it?”

Garrus nodded.  “Makes sense, though — how he was able to lose Jack.  And, hell, he’s probably managed to get his hands on the same schematics I tried studying last night.”  

“The same schematics I caught you snoring over?”

“I do not _snore._ ”  The look he shot her wanted to be a withering one, but maybe Garrus wasn’t quite ready for their usual level of ribbing back and forth just yet.  It was enough to make her wonder just how bad her condition had been.  Then again, she’d heard Chakwas — Billy had hit her with a reave attack, one that had put her out of commission for eighteen hours; that should have been enough to tell Thena how bad it had been.

 _Imagine if it had been Garrus — hell, anyone else for that matter.  You really think you’d’ve even entertained for half a second letting them back on duty?_   She knew the answer to that, felt the certainty in her gut.  It was a solid _hell no._

“Okay, so you were… breathing,” Thena said, aware of the complete and total _lack_ of conviction in her words.  “It was just really slow, deep…”

He sighed and shook his head.  “The word you’re looking for is _loud._   Okay, I get it.  I snore.”

They walked in silence for a few strides when she put a hand on his arm, slowing them to a stop.  “I’m all right, Garrus.  I’m giving you my word, and that’s… all I can give you, so it’s going to have to be enough.”

He looked down at her gauntleted hand on his armored arm and didn’t say anything for a moment.  Then: “You scared the hell out of me, Shepard.  What’s that human saying?  Ah, right — you scared years off my life.  Not sure what it really means, or even how many years it was, but it sure as hell _feels_ accurate.  And, yeah, we’re getting back on our feet and we’re going after him, because that’s what we do.  And we’re going to get the bastard, because that’s what else we do.”

She heard what he was saying, under the “pick yourself up, dust yourself off” sentiment, even under the frustration she knew was simmering beneath his plates — he’d lick his wounds, or whatever it was turians did after a close call, _later._

Of course, _later_ also meant the war they’d be heading back into.

“And after it’s done—”

“—And _before_ our heartfelt reunion with Reaper forces—” he interjected.

She nodded. “—it’s going to be you, me, and that bottle of the good stuff you brought on board.  Deal?”

“Yeah, you’ve got yourself a deal there.”

They continued on to the elevator in companionable, rather than tense, silence; when the doors slid shut, Garrus leaned against one of the walls and crossed his arms over his chest, surveying her for a second before speaking.  “Say… Shepard, there’s something I’ve been… curious about.”

“Just one thing?” Thena asked, as the elevator whisked them down to the Presidium Commons.

“Well,” he said slowly, “maybe just one thing to start with.”

Tilting her head, Thena regarded Garrus for a few seconds, trying to anticipate whatever it was on his mind.  There were times she could anticipate him, but the last three days had been too chaotic and too filled with… _noise_ for her to try.  “Okay.”  She inclined her head and gestured an invitation. “Shoot.”

“Why’d you ever let me on your ship?”

Of all the questions he could have asked, _that_ was the one she’d least expected, and she wondered for a moment — longer than a moment, really — if he was trying to distract her.  It was certainly possible.  Possible, also, that she _needed_ a distraction.  Her mouth worked for a moment before she figured out which words were going to come out of them. “Are… you asking why I ever let you on my ship to begin with?” she asked carefully.

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Garrus shrugged — a clear indication he was uncomfortable asking at all.  “Yeah,” he answered, a shadow of defiance coloring the word.  “I am.”  Garrus cleared his throat and added, “I mean, you had to recognize the name.  Even then.  Not a lot of Vakarians on C-Sec.”

Once she understood what it was he was _really_ asking, Thena stiffened and went still, staring at Garrus for several of the longest seconds she’d ever encountered.  His gaze didn’t waver, not an inch; he just watched her with all the steadiness  and patience she knew he was _capable_ of.  “Oh,” she said, finally.  “That.”

“Yeah.  That.”

The elevator doors opened, revealing the wide lobby and distant chatter from various news kiosks, and a softer undercurrent of hushed voices — the topics of conversation were limited: the war, the Reapers, Shepard herself, and now… a killer loose on the Citadel.  People seemed to understand that there was safety in numbers, and though there were fewerpeople overall in the lobby and banking area, there were still people, and they were clustered together.  Some — most, if she were going to be honest with herself — stopped their conversations entirely, just to watch her and Garrus walk through the lobby and on to the courtyard.  She wondered how many of them had been here the day she’d had her run-in with Billy, but that was a train of thought she wasn’t interested in visiting just yet, and she turned her mind back to the conversation at hand.

Intellectually she knew it was a conversation long overdue.  Hell, just _telling_ Garrus about those years… it was something she’d always meant to do, but they neither of them talked a lot about their respective families.  And maybe — _maybe_ what she was feeling was not a little guilt for all she’d learned about Garrus without his permission or knowledge, and for what wasn’t the first time, Thena wondered whether Liara had had any ulterior motives (at the time, at least) for handing over the Shadow Broker’s files.  

She’d answer anything he asked, her own stupid pride be damned.

“By that point I’d been with the Alliance long enough to have gotten over any… less than charitable feelings I might’ve had against C-Sec.” Thena shrugged as they walked side by side, the difference in their strides negligible, despite their height difference.  “I was older, wiser, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to turn my nose up at help just because that help happened to share DNA and a family name with someone who… was not my greatest fan.”  She chuckled, and it sounded rueful rather than amused to her own ears.  “I certainly didn’t see us… ending up this way.”

Garrus gave a soft snort of laughter.  “I’m not sure _anyone_ saw us ending up this way.”

“True enough.  So, anyway,” she went on as they descended the stairs to Meridian Place, “I needed your help, and you seemed competent and trustworthy, all things considered.  And I… might’ve picked up a verbal cue or two along the way that you and your dad didn’t exactly see eye to eye.  All in all, you seemed like a good person to have on my side.”

He digested this a moment, then gave a slow, satisfied nod.  “Glad you thought so.”

“Hell, Garrus, I _still_ think so.”

They stopped at the railing overlooking apartment blocks and skycar traffic.  There was a level below that jutted out slightly, and from their vantage point, Thena could see the access door Billy had disappeared through.

“If he went this way, that’s the only access point he could’ve gone through,” she said, pointing down to the level directly below.  “And I’ll be damned.  It’s still in the same spot.”  She grinned up at Garrus.  “I guess the Keepers don’t change _everything_.”

“Or they can only change things so many times before the same layouts start making it through the rotation again,” Garrus remarked.

Maneuvering themselves down there was easy enough; the maintenance door had a cheap lock — it let out a soft electronic whine barely a second or two after she ran her most reliable hacking program through her omni-tool.

“Was it always this easy?” Garrus asked as they eased themselves into the passageway.

“Used to be easier.  But those were the days of omni-gel.”  

“You were a deft hand with omni-gel at sixteen?  Impressive.”

She shot him a grin.  “I had an older brother; I was a deft hand with omni-gel when I was _twelve._ ”

“I think _that’s_ a story you’re gonna have to tell me sometime.”

The fact that nothing much had changed was true — or seemed to be true from the entrance.  In the past, it had been easier to slip from level to level without the extra weight that armor and arms afforded.  But then the door slid open and there was a rush of cool air that sent a cluster of memories spiraling forward with its not entirely pleasant, but still painfully familiar scent of stale air and cooking food and sweat and perfume and exhaust all mingled together, reminding her of faces and names ( _Nevvar, Kimlie, Ol’zhar, Dree_ ) and the rush of adrenaline that came _every time_ she clambered down to the access door ever since the one time she’d vaulted the railing and nearly overshot the landing, coming so close, _too_ _close_ to tumbling over the ledge.

But the moment Thena took the first step into the tunnel, the crystalline sharpness of the memories all fighting for dominance… faded, losing their urgency.  It didn’t matter if the Keepers _had_ changed the tunnels, the overall effect was still close enough to Thena’s memories.  The passage was narrower, but she was also taller now, armor adding both height and width to her frame.  It wasn’t unmanageable, or uncomfortable; it just seemed… _strange._  

 _It’s not going to be the same as it was,_ she reminded herself.  The Keepers were forever and always changing _everything._   She remembered how easy it was to get lost down here, especially after the Keepers had been through.  The days following a layout change had always and without exception resulted in more kids falling down into the fans.  For all that it was familiar, for all that it _looked_ the same, it wasn’t.

And neither was she.

A glance back at Garrus told her that the fit was even tighter for him, but again, not impossible.  “Down the rabbit hole all over again,” she breathed, facing forward again.  “Like Alice going back to Wonderland.”  The silence that followed was a textbook Garrus silence.  It was the silence that told her he was scouring his memory for context, for some snatch of conversation, _something_ that would clarify the cryptic statement.  “Kids’ book,” she supplied before he could ask. 

“Any good?” he asked, snapping on the Vindicator’s light before she could suggest it.  Thena followed suit.  The tunnels were lit, but poorly, illuminated only by dimly glowing lightbars along the floor, enough to show abbreviated location codes painted in red (ducts running east to west) or blue (north to south) on the walls anywhere the ducts intersected.  Duct rats weren’t the only ones who got lost when the Keepers switched things around — maintenance crews still needed to access these parts of the Citadel, and the painted signs were as good a breadcrumb trail as any.

“One of my favorites,” she said, shining the light around.  “A little weird.  Might be out of your league.”

He snorted behind her.  “Shepard, there was a time I thought _you_ were outta my league.  A book I think I can handle.”

The Citadel’s duct system was composed of tunnels large enough for Thena and Garrus to walk single file — they were both passages for airflow and provided access to various sections of the Citadel’s environmental controls.  The passages were wholly different and yet heartbreakingly familiar at the same time, and memories stirred when she read the locations codes as they passed one offshoot ( _That way’s probably the turian shelter)_ or a fork in the path  _(Zakera Ward should be down that way_ ).  And no matter how changed things were, there were still small niches here and there, holding control panels or janitorial closets or supply rooms, out of the way enough for someone to catch a few hours of sleep.  There were also, of course, hints that the ducts weren’t entirely uninhabited.  Crumpled tubes of nutrient paste and abandoned wrappers once belonging to food that had either been salvaged or stolen.  Certain sections had an air of neglect so thick it nearly choked her.  

She wondered if Billy passed through this way and hoped none of the ducts’ inhabitants got in his way.

“Any idea where he could’ve gone?” Garrus asked, though Thena had a feeling it was more to distract her than anything else.

“You can get damn near anywhere from here as long as you know which way to go.  Problem is, it’s hard to know which way to go; it’s easy to get… you know, _lost_ just doesn’t feel like an adequate enough word.”

Garrus let out a soft snort.  “I hate to break it to you, but I’m _already_ lost.”

She smiled a little at his tone.  “It’s the perfect hiding spot.  It also just happens to be the perfect way to get to another bolt hole, if he’s got one.  You’ve still got the plans for all the maintenance shafts and ducts, right?”

“The ones you caught me _snoring_ over?  Sure.”

“I’d like to take a look once we get out.  It’s coming back to me — some of it, anyway, and it’s changed, but there’s still logic to it, I think.”  They continued on until the tunnel branched off into a T; there the air moved faster, buffeting them a little less than gently.  Thena turned to face Garrus.  “Unless I miss my guess, we’re moving closer to the Citadel Tower.  A left here should… hmm, let me see those schematics.”  Garrus obliged, and soon the monitor on his omni-tool glowed softly with a holo-representation of the ducts in all their labyrinthine glory.  “Yeah,” she said, pointing to a spot on the map.  “We should come out somewhere near the Council Chambers.  From there we can take rapid transit back to C-Sec.  I want to talk to Arturicus and find out where his men have already searched.  Not much point in covering ground they’ve already combed.  Not when there are so many places he could be.”

Garrus frowned a moment at the map before asking her, “Don’t you want to head back the way we came?”

“No.  Too much of a pain in the ass to get back up to the marketplace from the access ledge.  This is quicker,” she replied, turning left.  The wind in this tunnel was worse, and Thena looked back at Garrus over her shoulder.  “Ventilation shaft.  Air from this section’s being pushed out — the outflow fans are behind us.”  

“You got any ideas where he could be holed up?”

“Oh, I’ve got _plenty_ of ideas.”  She looked back over her shoulder again.  “Plenty.”

They traveled on a few more meters in silence, the harsh metallic _clunk_ of their boots warring with the rush of artificial wind.  The fans were still struggling to filter the smoke from the air, and here the scent of stale smoke — and worse — was noticeable.  “So,” Garrus said, raising his voice just loudly enough to be heard over the vents, and probably to get her mind off the smell, “what got you hauled in front of my dad?”

“Small stuff, usually,” she replied, keeping her voice louder than the air blowing past them.  “Third time I got brought in for vagrancy, he, ah… he sat me down in his office and we had a little talk.”

Garrus’ laugh was a short bark of noise.  “And let me guess — he did most of the talking.”

“Something like that.”  And so many years later — more than a decade, more than a dozen — the memory of the elder Vakarian’s lectures still made her cheeks run hot with shame.  “He…  uh.  Had a pretty eloquent way of telling someone they’d disappointed him.  That they could do better than they were doing.”

“You got… _that_ lecture?  Hell, Shepard, I _know_ that one.  Practically by heart.”

Thena only shrugged, still trying — and struggling — to keep the memory at arm’s length.  It was harder, down here.  “He knew who I was, Garrus.  The Alliance made no secret of the fact that one of the Mindoir survivors had gone missing.  I figure the only reason he _didn’t_ turn me over was because by that point I was an adult by turian standards.  And… I don’t know, maybe he knew that since I’d made such a point of getting away from and outright avoiding the Alliance, chances were good the same thing would happen if he sent me back to them.”

“…Huh.”

“I… I think he knew — or noticed, maybe — that… I was able to keep some of those kids in line.  Usually the kids who wind up duct rats don’t… really _achieve_ a lot.  Prostitution, drugs… some of them got involved with the Shadow Broker, like I told you.”

“And you… kept them out of trouble.  So by keeping them out of trouble, you were… however inadvertently, _helping_ C-Sec.”

“Inadvertently being the operative word,” she agreed.  They were getting closer to the Citadel Tower exit; this section had several offshoots, all of which came from different fans, pushing “old” air out through a series of vents, where the vented air would be filtered, scrubbed, and eventually recirculated.  She stopped and turned to face Garrus.  It was easier talking about this with her back to him, but now, faced with those eyes, those clan markings, the way his mandibles snapped tight against his face when he was displeased…  She took another breath and let it out.  “He… was the one who suggested I join the military.  Well.  He… told me to _do_ something with my life.  That I couldn’t… keep doing what I was doing.  He… uh.  Directed me to Anderson.  I…  I didn’t _want_ to.  But…”

“My _father_?”

“Yeah.  He… some of the kids did all right.  A few went back home.”

“Great for them,” Garrus said, cautiously.  “But it meant you were still stuck in the same place.”

 _Just where do you expect to be in five years’ time, young woman?  Ten?  Will you still be herding runaways and teaching them how to avoid the security cams and steal their next meal?  And whether they return home or meet a more ignoble end, where does that leave you?  Exactly where you began.  Protecting those unable to protect themselves is not an unworthy goal, but you may as well be throwing your effort and determination into the vents.  Do_ something, _or in time you will vanish into obscurity as well — into the vents, or worse, into the Broker’s pockets — and who will pick up your cause if —_ when _— there is nothing left of you?_

“Yeah.  I was.”  Emotion and memory, sudden and sweeping and too, too bright for the ducts filled every last corner of Thena’s mind.  “Right.  So.”  She cleared her throat and turned.  “Getting a little close in here.  Let’s go.  The tower’s this way, or should be.”

But as they started up the incline, the burnt smell got worse.  But gradually the scent began to take shape; it began to smell less like old smoke and more like recent gunfire.

“Garrus?”  As she checked the clip on her Vindicator, she heard Garrus do the same.

“Right behind you.”

They both shone their lights up the ducts shooting off the main tunnel, one after another.

“Shepard?”  _Something_ in Garrus’ tone made Thena spin to her left, bringing her light to his.  It was blood.  A long red smear of it along the duct wall, as if someone had tried to scrabble for purchase along the smooth surface.  

Certainty made every nerve stand alert as her stomach iced over.  _He’s been here._

“Whoever it was, they were pulled this way,” said Garrus as he turned and started back down the tunnel they’d come through.

Thena shone her light on the ceiling.  Another smear, this one dark blue.  Both of them, weapons drawn, began walking faster until they were running, until the sounds of their footfalls drowned out even the ventilation fans.  Blue, green, and red blood marked the floor, walls, and ceilings, as if they’d simply been pulled along.

_Or thrown._

“Shit. _Shit._ ”  Thena broke into a sprint, barely hearing Garrus’ shout and footsteps behind her.  

“Shepard!  Where the hell are you—”

“ _Get on the comm to Bailey!_ ” she yelled before whispering under her breath pleas that might have been, _could_ have been prayers at that point.  The wind at her back pushed her onward to the vents.  She knew the sound, knew how to follow it — you always remembered the way to the place you weren’t supposed to go, the place _no one_ was _ever_ supposed to go.

The drop-off was coming — she could see it getting closer and closer and _closer_ , but when Thena skidded to a stop, though the wind was so strong — _too_ strong — still she stumbled forward, both with momentum and the force of the wind around her.  Garrus snatched at the back of her armor, pulling her back.  Perhaps he’d thought she was going to tumble forward.  

Forward and _down._

The vents.  In this portion of the Citadel’s underside, three enormous ventilation fans moved air out to be filtered and recycled back into the environment.  It wasn’t a matter of the fans pushing or pulling air — whether one was pushed or pulled depended on perspective only.  The blades, too, were enormous.  Too large to imagine, really, even though they were right _there._

Right there, and smeared with blood and matter.  All colors of blood — red blood and blue combined to make purple streaks in some spots.  It coated the blades and spattered upward and, as she could see through the fans’ grates, down, spraying the smooth duct walls with splashes of blood and chunks of armor and bone.

Garrus yelled something, but she couldn’t hear him over the fans, but then he hit a button on his omni-tool and his voice came through the comm in her ear.

“We need to get our asses up to Bailey and find out who hasn’t checked in.”

“The tower access point’s back that way,” she replied, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, but unable to look away.

_Stasis field.  Throw.  They found him and they were in his way.  He was in a hurry and they were in his damned way._

Wasting no time, they made their way back up the tunnel, following the bloodstains that had led them this way to begin with, back to the access door.  This time Garrus hacked open the lock and they stumbled out together.  The air… should have felt, smelled, _tasted_ cleaner, at least somewhat, but the stench of smoke and… _whatever_ else was back there seemed to coat Thena’s mouth and fill her nose, making her gag.  She swallowed hard, bracing her hands against her thighs, and took another deep breath of air, willing it not to smell and taste so foul.

“How long ago did he do that?” she asked, gulping another breath of air.  “If we can figure out when he—”

“Not that long ago.”

When she glanced up at him through the fall of her hair, she saw Garrus wasn’t looking at her.  “What?  How can you—”

“Look.”  He was pointing to the relay monument.  “ _Look,_ Shepard.”

It was still early in the Presidium, and the foot traffic was thin, most offices hadn’t even started business hours yet.  Maybe the most ambitious administrative personnel had shown up, but the Presidium was far from _busy._   No one had noticed.  No one was _around_ to notice the woman’s body, lying so forlornly — so _brokenly_ — at the base of the Relay Monument.  She still wore her C-Sec armor, the only addition to it being the crude red stripe down the right arm.  Red paint matching, she was nearly certain, the same paint used in the ductwork, the location codes stenciled on the walls.

“She’s one of Bailey’s,” she whispered, but only before instinct commanded her to _move._   Thena sprinted toward and then vaulted over the railing, racing over to the body.  The name on the armor read _Adler_ , though it had been scratched out — poorly.  Even as she knelt to check for a pulse, Thena was certain the woman was dead; her hair was matted with dark blood, and her head lolled at an unnatural angle, the neck broken.  

Garrus’ came up behind her.  “I got Bailey.  He’s sending a team down.”

“And he’s got even fewer agents to send now,” she murmured, indicating the fallen agent’s armor.

Agent Adler did not bear the strongest resemblance to Thena; her hair was dark brown, rather than black, and somewhat longer than Thena had ever worn it.  Her complexion was darker, and the dead woman’s sightless, staring eyes were green.  Reaching out, Thena closed the lids.  

“Look,” Garrus said, his voice low.  Thena gritted her teeth against the retort that wanted to fight its way out.  She didn’t _want_ to look.  She didn’t want to wander through Billy’s wake, _looking_ at the damage he’d wrought.  She was tired of _looking._   She wanted to _do._

But then she saw what he was indicating — a cut running down the dead woman’s right eyebrow.  The same spot where Thena had once sported a scar, years before Cerberus remade her and erased all the marks from her old life.  That eyebrow scar had been but one of them, a badge of honor she’d earned one frigid winter on Mindoir when her father had decided to teach his offspring to play hockey.  For a moment, the barest breath of a second, Thena could remember the puck striking her, knocking her back, pale ice turning suddenly red with blood, the sound of the hockey stick clattering to the ice when Jason dropped it, of Troy throwing up the second he saw all the _blood_ , and Mom stormily crediting Dad’s genes for giving Thena a skull hard enough that she hadn’t been concussed by the blow.

“It’s still supposed to be you,” Garrus said quietly.  Pushing the sudden onslaught of memories aside, Thena found she could only nod.

“He’s keeping his timetable,” she said, checking the time.

“Yeah, but he’s rushing to do it,” he pointed out.  “Getting it done is more important than setting the stage now.”  Garrus lowered his voice.  “He’s getting desperate.”

“He’s also running out of time.”  Thena pushed to her feet and turned away from the dead agent, looking up at Garrus.  “The Relay Monument.”

“Where we came through from Ilos.”

She nodded.  “Not a trip I’d soon forget.”  She looked up at the sky above them.  High, high above, skycars cut swaths from point A to point B; there were more of them now, commuters on their way to early shifts, or on their way home from late ones.  Her mind worked as her eyes tracked the speeding shapes.  “Where did you say that last body was found?”

“Petitioners’ Stage.  Why?”

“And the one before that was found at the Presidium Fountain.”  She frowned.  “All pretty high-profile spots.  High-profile and… not a little symbolic, wouldn’t you say?”

Garrus thought a moment, then gave a slow nod.  “Yeah, I would.  He’s putting ‘Shepard’ right where the final battle with Saren began.  More or less.”

“And the Council reinstated my Spectre status, but not in person — a detail I never told Diana Allers.  But anyone with access to the extranet would’ve found pictures of my induction.  Possibly made assumptions that the reinstatement went the same way.”

“So what’s so specific about placing the body at the fountain?” Garrus asked.

She combed her fingers roughly through her hair, tugging lightly.  Billy’s patterns, such as they were, were consistently inconsistent.  Like a child with a toy, distracted when a new one came along, so was he with his MO.  He stuck to them so long as they were convenient. “I… don’t know,” she admitted reluctantly.  “Could’ve just been purely strategic.”

Garrus nodded slowly.  “Maybe.  Place the body where the most people would find it, creating the most chaos.  Which he did, and it worked to his advantage.  Now he’s moving backward, and he’s got to find more meaningful spots.”

“Because he’s already caused the chaos.  He can’t fall back on that the same way anymore.”  

Voices were approaching and growing louder; Bailey’s team — and the man himself, his face grim — were approaching the monument.  Thena and Garrus climbed down as Doctor Sarik and several other agents climbed up.  The team worked quickly and quietly, covering the body and scanning the area for clues none of them looked hopeful to find.

“I’m sorry, Bailey,” she said.  There wasn’t much else she _could_ say.  “Whose… whose team was she on?”

Bailey looked down and shook his head, uttering a sound that was nothing at all like a laugh.  “It _was_ her team.  Adler was a hell of an agent.  Said she had a hunch and wanted to take some men in.”

“What kind of hunch?” asked Garrus.  Bailey shrugged and shook his head.

“I couldn’t tell you — said she saw _something_ in that updated file Doctor T’Soni put together, but she thought it was a long shot.  I told her a long shot was more than what we had and she had clearance to check it out.  Comms started acting up not too long after they went into the ducts a few hours ago.  Adler figured it was just interference, but…”

“He scrambled the damn signal,” growled Garrus.  “ _Again_.” 

With a resigned nod, Bailey looked over at the maintenance access door, still hanging open, then spared the briefest glance back at where Doctor Sarik and another agent were preparing the body for transport.  He looked _old_ suddenly, as he turned his attention back to Thena.  “I got on the horn to maintenance.  They’re gonna have to shut those fans down.  Check the air-scrubbers.  Clean the filters.  Vent fans can’t be down for long.  No more than an hour or two, not the way we’ve still got smoke in the air.  Not nearly enough time to— well.”  He set his jaw and squared his shoulders.  “So.  What’ve we got?  And I’m not talking about the crime scene.  I watched those vids, Shepard.  We need to figure out his next move, and fast — he’s gotta be looking for his next victim, and I don’t aim to let him _have_ another victim.”

Hindsight, as they said, was 20/20 — now that Thena knew Billy had viewed Allers’ series on her in its entirety, it was no surprise at all that he’d taken to the maintenance and ventilation ducts.  And if he was looking for symbolic, _meaningful_ places on the Citadel, there was certainly no shortage of them to represent _that_ era of her life.  With a final look over her shoulder at the crime-scene crew collecting their fallen comrade, Thena began to walk, arms crossed over her chest.  With her fingers gripped scythe-like at her elbows, she found herself less inclined to pace.  Or hit things.  Or take a gun into her hands.

“It… probably depends on what about each segment caught his eye.  First segment didn’t tell a whole lot, other than the war and my reinstatement.  But Allers has been reporting on the war since she set foot on the _Normandy_.  Second segment had more to do with the Cerberus years.  The Collectors.”

“Which would’ve been about the time you first crossed his path,” Bailey supplied.  

“Right,” Thena replied with a nod.  “Third segment, first human Spectre.  Saren.  Sovereign.”

“And the last bit was about Mindoir and your two years off the grid,” said Garrus.  “Which is where Billy is now.”

The problem was, they _didn’t_ know where Billy was now.  Or where he was headed.  Oh, Thena had ideas, certainly — if he was going for somewhere symbolic, he might choose the embassy offices where she’d sat so many years before, trembling and deeply in shock, her skin still smelling so strongly of smoke, of burning homes and crops and bodies, as she numbly answered questions she could barely remember the answers to.  Or he might decide on the turian shelter, where she’d slept more than once — on a hard cot if she was lucky, on the floor if she wasn’t, shivering under a thin blanket.  Or still, one of C-Sec’s holding cells.  If anything, there were too many options — and those options were only helpful if they wanted to find a dead body, rather than a live one.

She turned on her heel and looked hard at Garrus and Bailey.  “Chances are good he’s on the lookout for another victim.  We’ve got our window, and it’s already starting to close.  Let’s check the security vids, see when he did this — if we _can._   All I want is a timestamp.  Even if the feed went out or got scrambled, that’ll still give us an idea of when he was here.  From there we can… figure something out, try to get ahead of him.  Something.”

It wasn’t her best plan.  Hell, it was barely a plan at all.  But they didn’t have much else to go on.

Yet.

###

It was one thing to expect the worst all the time — and Garrus did try to prepare himself for the worst, all the time — but it was something else entirely to have so damn many variations on what “the worst” could have been.  Another death, and knowing Billy was rushed, knowing he’d been on the run, none of that provided even the first bit of comfort.  More lives were gone; good cops, who’d managed to survive _Cerberus_ , of all things, caught by surprise by the very person they were tracking down.  They’d known he was a biotic, known he was dangerous, and still foreknowledge and preparation hadn’t been enough.  Had Billy gotten the jump on them?  Had they lost the element of surprise?  They must have, because nothing else made a damn bit of sense.

Bailey had said Adler had had some sort of hunch.  He wondered what that _hunch_ could have been, since it sent her and her men in exactly the right — or _wrong,_ depending how you looked at it — direction.

The bad news had reached C-Sec even before they did.  Agents walking the halls were subdued, helpless anger rolling off them in waves, and all of it funneled directly at him and Shepard.  She was the Spectre, after all, and lately _everyone_ knew the stories about what the crew of the _Normandy_ had accomplished.  Granted, Garrus doubted if even half of those stories included all the times things had gone sideways during their missions, or the last-minute changes, or the damn _traps_ (no thanks to — or maybe _all_ thanks to the Illusive Man).  He doubted the news vids talked too much about the lives they weren’t able to save — the lives of the colonists trapped on the Collector ship, the ones eventually reduced down to paste and fed to that… _thing._ In short, nobody knew how many times things had to go wrong before they finally went _right._   Nobody knew about the compromises, because nobody tuned in to news vids to watch stories about _compromise_ and hard decisions; it was the heroic feats of daring-do people wanted to hear about.  Shepard had taken down the Collectors, after all — some _Purgatory_ escapee should’ve been an easy capture.  But Garrus didn’t know how to make anyone begin to understand _it didn’t work like that_.

The office housing the security vids and terminals was a rectangular room with a long counter holding five terminals, all with direct access to security vids taken from cameras installed all over the Citadel.  It was deserted but for one tech, a young salarian who, Garrus suspected, was either completely new to the post, or recently promoted.  He queued up the feeds from the security cams covering three angles at various points surrounding the Relay Monument, which had more to do with the offices in that part of the Presidium than the monument itself.

“I’ll be damned,” Bailey breathed as the three different vid feeds played on the monitors.  Two had been scrambled beyond recognition.  One, however, had not.  The vantage point wasn’t perfect, but it showed them _enough._   The feed showed the access door being flung open, and Billy, looking filthy, haggard, and _furious_ stalking out, dragging something — _no, someone_ — behind him.  He had Adler’s armor by the collar, and he was pulling her unresisting body out of the passageway.

“I don’t think she’s dead yet,” Shepard breathed.  “Freeze the shot.”  She pointed, tapping her finger against the holoscreen.  “Look.  She’s out cold, but…”

“Doesn’t look like a broken neck to me either, Shepard,” the commander muttered.

The agent resumed playback in time to show Billy step back and aim a blast of biotic energy at the unconscious agent, using it to heft her up.  

Once she was midair, she began to thrash and struggle against the field.  Not dead yet.  Not by a long shot.  Not until Billy flung her like a doll at the Relay Monument, watching her hit it hard and tumble like a broken toy to the ground.  The timestamp on the cam feed read 0719.  Shepard hadn’t even been in her armor yet.

Commander Bailey killed the playback and the screen went dark.  

“He’s already had time to start looking for the last victim,” Shepard said grimly.  “A few hours at least.”  She looked over at him, and Garrus could read it in the cold, cold blue of her eyes, the tight line of her jaw, the furious flush coloring her face.  “And I am _done_ with him making me look like I’m _fucking around._ ”  She stood and stalked from one end of the room to the other.  “I want that _bastard’s_ face everywhere on this station.  On every ward, on every kiosk — I want his image holoprojected on the _goddamn tower._   And if he scrubs his picture from a kiosk, I want it replaced.  I want printouts _on paper_ with his face, and I want them _plastered_ across this station.  I am _done_ —”

The comm link buzzed in Garrus’ ear, and from Shepard’s reaction, she heard the same thing.  _“What?_ ” she answered, the word snapping out like a whip.

“Shepard?”  It was Liara.  “Shepard, is everything all—D”

“No, Liara.  It is not,” she ground out.  “And this isn’t a good time.”

But Liara was insistent, and the strain of it was evident in her voice.  “You need to come back to the _Normandy_ — both you and Garrus.  I have something I need you to see.”

“Liara—”

“It’s about Billy, Shepard.  I’ve learned something.  Something important — something we didn’t— _couldn’t_ have known before.”

“All right.”  Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose.  With one deep breath in, Garrus watched Shepard collect herself, piece by broken piece.  By the time she exhaled, she was whole again — whole and herself, but something about her seemed… _bruised_.  “All right,” she said, her voice too soft, too _tired_ , and heavy with frustration that had nowhere else to go, “we’re on our way.”  She killed the connection and looked up at him; the flush of righteous fury had drained completely away and leaving her pale enough to make a thread of worry weave through his chest.  “What do you think, Garrus?  Is it good news, or bad?”

“Right about now, I’m hoping for useful.”

 

###

 

Thena Shepard had been struck speechless before.  The good news, for her, was that her silence was never particularly _lengthy_ — it only lasted long enough for her mind to wrap itself around the issue at hand, and then she’d be able to make words again.  This time, it wasn’t working out that way.

“What did you say?” she said, and it wasn’t that she was unwilling to process Liara’s news — she was _unable_ to.

Liara shook her head as she rushed from one end of her quarters to the other.  “I told you—”

“It’s not possible, Liara.  You told me Billy was from New Canton.”

“He _was._   But we also know he was a runaway and a troubled child.”

“We figured out that part from the whole ‘tortured small animals’ portion of his file,” Garrus drawled.  “But Liara, are you _sure?_ ”

The look Liara shot Garrus was a dangerous one, and Thena recognized it.  Question her methods, question her motives, but _never_ question Liara T’soni’s information.  “She’s sure, Garrus.  That’s a look that presages a biotic punch in the face.”  Thena crossed the room and sat heavily on the edge of Liara’s bed.  “All right.  How… how in the _hell_ did you figure this out?”

“The vid series that Billy had downloaded on the terminal,” she said, approaching her own workstation.  “I… watched it, hoping I might find some clues, a different angle, a different perspective.  _Something_ that could help us.”

“And I’m guessing you found… something.”

Liara nodded, fingers flying rapidly over a keyboard.  “It— it didn’t… seem important before.  It didn’t hit me until I watched the final segment of the series.  There were some dates that came up that struck a chord.  I wasn’t sure why, exactly, so I went back to Billy’s file and cross-referenced some of the dates.  I… when I did, I was able to place you both on the Citadel for several months of the same year.  Not long before you joined up with the Alliance.”

Thena felt sick.  The floor tipped and tilted and her head _ached,_ but still she protested; everything inside of her _insisted_ she protest.  “It’s not _possible_.”  But that was a lie, and she _knew_ it was, down to her bones.  Duct rats seldom ever went by their real names.  They picked aliases and nicknames — like Mouse — maybe to distance themselves from the lives they’d left.  Maybe to make it easier to go back to those lives eventually.  It was possible and probable and _plausible_ as hell.  She just didn’t want to believe it.  And, more than anything, Thena knew she had to get over _that_ damn quick.

“It _is_ ,” Liara said _,_ unwittingly giving voice to Thena’s thoughts.  “We knew he was a runaway, and that he’d been in and out of different detention centers — and that he’d been shipped off the Citadel to one of them.”

 _He’s made this personal, Shepard.  He_ knows _you now._

How true it was.  Except he didn’t just know her _now_ — he always _had._

Thena couldn’t remember him.  Even facing Billy in that hallway, _seeing_ him face to face, she didn’t recognize him, couldn’t recall one face out of the dozens of children she’d known.  He couldn’t have been that much younger than her.  Five years, maybe, which would have put him at twelve or thirteen at the time.  But even that knowledge didn’t help spark any sort of memory at all.

“What happened to him after he left the Citadel?  What was he shipped off for?”

“Nothing good, I can tell you that much,” Garrus said.  “It would’ve been my father who dealt with him.”

Garrus’ father, who’d dared her to make something of herself, had sent another, different child off the station and into a detention center.

“So what do we do with this?” Thena asked.  It wasn’t more than a rhetorical question; when she pushed to her feet and began walking the length of Liara’s cabin, she began to answer it.  “He knows me — and he knows me _better_ than we thought.  He’s already made clear he’s trying to take me down.  Trying to lower me.  Make me look bad — _however_ you want to phrase it, that’s what he’s doing.”

“Shepard,” Garrus said quietly.  “He’s been blaming you from the start.  We just figured he was blaming you for him getting shot in the escape.  It’s older than that.  Way older.  And he’s blaming you for a whole hell of a lot more than a damn gunshot wound.”

Did Billy _always_ know?  Had he known from the start?  Had he been planning this since he’d sent that first message?  Or if not _this,_ then some semblance of revenge, of striking at her over and over and _over_ again, satisfied only when he could make her look like a failure?  And if that was the case, how in the hell did he see it ending?  Because one way or another, that end was coming.

And now, come hell or high water, Thena was determined to be _ready._


	10. Day Four

As plans went, it wasn’t her most airtight.  Hell, it was far _from_ airtight.  But then, it was harder to anticipate an opponent’s strategy when the opponent in question used so little _strategy_ to begin with.  Oh, he’d been cunning enough, and he’d been smart and fast and _sneaky_ enough.  But anyone could land a solid punch when their target was distracted — and so thoroughly.

Billy had been finding and using areas that were symbolic.  Specific.  _Important_.  He’d been planting bodies there, depending heavily the element of surprise, of theatricality, to terrify people and in the process, pressing a poisoned blade deeper and deeper into people’s faith and confidence in Thena, attempting to taint their belief.  He was trying to nudge a tower until it toppled, placing pressure on a structure until it crumbled — to what end, she didn’t know.  Problem was, it didn’t seem to be working the way he wanted it to.  People were scared — indeed, _terrified_ — but they didn’t seem to be turning _against_ her.  Oh, there’d been the woman who’d scolded her for not tending to the Reapers as she ought to have been doing, but overall, if Billy was trying to make her look bad, if he was trying to turn the tide of public opinion against her, it wasn’t working.

And the problem with _that_ was that it simply served to feed his frustration and, consequently, his desperation.

Thena’s plan, such as it was, was to monitor anything remotely resembling missing person reports; she wanted to know the second something, _anything_ showed up on the radar, and she wanted to be poised and ready to go the second something did show up.  Her plan placed recon teams in some of Billy’s preferred hunting grounds — the docks, chief among them — and in locations she was betting were symbolically significant enough to catch Billy’s attention: the embassy offices, where she’d been taken before fleeing for the ducts; the turian shelter; and, perhaps most incongruously, C-Sec headquarters.

Her final choice had earned her a skeptical look from Garrus.

“Tell me again why you think he might try _anything_ in the heart of C-Sec?” he asked as they walked together through the docking bay, on their way back to Bailey’s office.  Thena hadn’t wanted to waste any more time than absolutely necessary, so she’d left Liara to hunt down the recon and squad members and send them on to C-Sec HQ, so Thena could brief them.

“Lots of reasons,” she replied.  “Your dad, for a start.  I’m thinking if Billy’s playing a blame game, C-Sec’s got to be at the top of the list.”

Garrus didn’t look convinced.  “Shepard, my dad’s not even with C-Sec anymore,” he argued.  “And since the rebuild, his _office_ isn’t there anymore.”

“Still, C-Sec’s the reason he got his ass jettisoned off the station.  C-Sec and _me._ ”

“So that’s where your money is.”

She nodded.  “And that’s where _we’re_ gonna be. He already took out Adler and her squad, so I can’t see him being too worried about the odds if he’s outnumbered.”

Their route took them through the docks, and they were nearly to the elevator when a shrill whistle sounded through the hall.

 _“Shepard!_ ”

Thena and Garrus both turned in time to see Jack and Ash striding towards them.  Ashley, it was clear, was tamping down on her emotions; her lips were pressed into a hard line, and everything about her bearing screamed _urgent._ But Jack was taking no such measures; her jaw was set, and her eyes burning with rage.  A turian C-Sec officer was close behind them.  “We got a development, Shepard.”

 _That’s understating things,_ was what she’d wanted to say.  Instead she inclined her head at Jack.  “What’s the sitrep?”

“We’ve got a missing person, Shepard,” Ashley told them.  “We’ve been able to confirm she was last seen about an hour ago.  

Jack jerked her chin to the side, indicating the refugees behind her.  “The C-Sec cop on duty made the report. Told us she was a regular at his kiosk—”

Thena’s stomach plummeted.  _Oh, no.  No, no, no_.

“A girl?” she asked, hoping — clutching at the possibility — she was wrong.  “About this tall?  Blonde?  Mid-late teens?”

Jack’s brows drew together in a frown.  “What, you know her?” 

_I was her._

It wasn’t supposed to have been her.  Thena wasn’t sure who exactly it was “supposed” to have been, but not _her._ And yet, in retrospect, Thena could only chastise herself for not seeing it ahead of time.  Of course he chose her.  _Damn_ it.

According to the C-Sec agent on duty, he’d spoken with the teenager — Amanda — briefly before an early-morning shuttle of refugees docked.  And she, as she always did, went to wait dutifully by the airlock, looking hard at every exhausted face for familiar ones.  The agent — as frequently happened — found himself answering the new wave of refugees’ questions, and pointing them to whoever it was they happened to need to speak with, dependent upon their needs.  Some only needed to be shown the memorial wall.  Others needed doctors.  Still others had business in the embassy.

By the time the crowd thinned, the girl was nowhere to be found.

“I was making my circuit,” Jack said with a shrug.  “Figured I’d make sure Billy’s pictures were still up, keeping an eye out.  Williams here was just coming in to take over watch.”

“Got to talking with Agent Vexius, and soon as he mentioned a missing girl… well, there you were.”

“And you last saw her an hour ago?”

“I saw her waiting by the airlock an hour ago,” the turian officer said.  “Then, once the new arrivals went on their way and cleared out of the immediate area, she was gone.

“Did she mention any friends?”  Garrus asked.  “Anyone she’d been spending time with?”

Vexius shook his head.  “Kid hardly talks to anyone.  Except for me, I think,” he added with a shrug.  “She’s been looking for her family since she got here.”

Thena exhaled hard through her teeth. “And that’s not the sort of thing that lends itself to socializing.”  The officer gave a grim nod.

She tried not to think too hard about it — about how he’d chosen this girl with obvious care.  He had to have noticed her from the start, from those days after the coup.  And once he’d watched the bio-vid, Billy made the same connection Thena had felt when she first noticed the teen, first heard her story.

She wasn’t going to let him finish this. And _like hell_ she was going to let the window close.

“All right.  Ash, round up whoever you can — C-Sec, marines, even other refugees — and get a local search started.  There’s still a chance she just wandered off.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  Ashley snapped a salute and strode off.

Jack, Garrus, get your asses up to C-Sec and find Bailey.  I’ve got to get a hold of Liara—”  She pulled up her omni-tool to call over to Liara, but the chirp in her ear sounded before she even opened up the channel.  “Shepard here; Liara, is that you?  I’ve got—”

But it wasn’t Liara, not by a long shot.  The male voice was as calm, as perfectly serene as it had been when he’d greeted her in the apartment doorway.  “Hello, Thena.”

Too fast.  It was all happening too damn fast.  She’d wanted to get her people on the offensive. She’d wanted men in place _before_ he could do anything, before he could hurt someone else.  But here he was again.  _Again,_ he was taking away the upper hand, snatching it right out of her grip.  

“Hello, Billy,” she said, as conversationally as she could manage through gritted teeth.  “Got some new tech, huh?”

“Well, it’s not like C-Sec’s really got anyone to _guard_ anything.  It’s like a candy store in there, if you know what you’re looking for.”

“And I guess you do.”

Billy chuckled.  It was pleasant on the surface, but with an oily undercurrent that slithered into her ears and down her spine.  “I always know what I’m looking for.”

“And that is…?”

“Well, right now I’m looking for you.”

She spoke, delivering the words slowly and deliberately.  “I think you know exactly where the hell I am.”

“I have a few ideas,” was his airy reply.  Airy and _smug._   “You’re off the _Normandy_ , I know that much.  I can’t seem to connect to you when you’re aboard the ship.  Funny thing, that.”

“Yeah.  Funny.”  She spat the words out.  “Tell me what you want.  You have a hostage, I know that much.  So let’s figure something out before someone else gets hurt.”  _Unless that someone’s you.  Then I’m all for it._

“Don’t even want to talk, do you?” the voice sneered.  “You used to like to talk.  Tell us _stories_.  Do you remember the stories, Thena?  They were stories your mother told you, weren’t they?  And I suppose you told them to us so you’d never forget them.  Because they were _important._ ”

She remembered the stories.  She remembered thin bodies huddling together for warmth in the ducts, as she told them tales about a girl and a white rabbit and a grinning cat.  She recalled nights in various shelters, tired enough but too hungry to sleep, whispering other stories her mother had told her about heroes and lost warriors — Perseus and Odysseus — about meddling gods and goddesses — Hera, Aphrodite, Ares — of a time further back than any of them could have imagined, a time filled with one-eyed giants and flying horses, of women who could control a man with the power of song alone, of snake-skinned women who could turn a man to stone with nothing more than a look.  Yes, the stories themselves had been important.  But not as important as the reasons she’d had for telling them in the first place.  

“What are you getting at?” she ground out.

“They were more important than _us._ ”

Thena gestured to Garrus and Jack to follow as she started for the elevator.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Billy.  And, either way, this isn’t you telling me what you want.”  _Keep him talking.  Gotta keep him talking…_

“I want people to see you for what you are.  You _left_ us.  You left us to starve and to die and to be shipped off to a fucking _juvie work farm,_ you selfish _bitch._ ”  

Once they were safely inside the elevator, Thena pulled out her omni-tool and redirected the comm signal through it, turning up the audio.  “No one was supposed to starve, Billy,” she said.  “I sent back more than enough credits for that.  Nevvar—”

His voice sounded tinny over the speaker.  “Oh.  _Right_.  The credits.  In the mailbox.  Yeah.  You know, I might’ve neglected to mention the credits to anyone.”

“How did you even— I gave the mail passkey to _Nevvar_.”

“Yeah.  Funny thing about that.  Nevvar _died_.  Poor, clumsy Nevvar.  He… uh, _fell_ into the vents after he told me what you’d done.  He was nervous, you know.  He was afraid he’d let you down, that he wasn’t responsible enough.  I told him he was right — he’d probably lose the passkey and that he should let me hold on to it.”  There was an unhinged little giggle that told Thena far more than Billy’s words had.  “They all thought you’d abandoned us.”

“But you knew better.  And you let them think it.”

 _“You did abandon us,”_ he shouted _._ The signal crackled with static even as Billy’s voice cracked and trembled with the sudden flood of rage.  _“Who the fuck gave you the right to leave?_ You _owed_ it to us to _stay.  What the hell made you so goddamn important?_ ”

“I wanted to make things better, Billy.  For _everybody._ ”  She was barely even aware of Garrus and Jack in the elevator with her; she didn’t look at them — she didn’t dare.  Her emotions were too raw, too _intense_ as they roiled dangerously close to the surface.  This wasn’t her — she had better control over herself than this, but every discovery, every revelation was like a punch to the gut, with less and less time to recover and catch her breath between strikes.  “I wanted to _do_ something to help.  I wanted to—”

“Make things better.  Yeah.  You said.  Funny, but Nevvar didn’t think they were too much _better_.”

“You _killed_ Nevar,” she spat, fury lowering her voice to a growl.

“No, Thena.”  Another chuckle.  “You did.  So are you coming to find me?”

The elevator felt too close, too hot, too damned stifling by half.  “We need to talk.  You wanted to talk, right?”

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“No.”  That earned her glares from both Garrus and Jack, the latter whispering “ _Are you fucking stupid?_ ” But Thena shook her head sharply at her, mouthing the words _Not now_.

“You don’t get to bring your friends.  Besides, something horrible might happen.  _Again_. Would you really want that on your conscience along with _so many_ other deaths?  Would your friends forgive you if you got them killed, Thena?”

“You know what I think?  I think I’m tired of your questions, Billy.  I think it’s time for me to ask you one:  Where are you?”

“Oh, come on,” he scoffed.  “That’s an easy one.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m where our little reunion started.  Purgatory.”

 

###

 

The first thing they noticed coming off the elevator was how _quiet_ it was.  There was no pounding music coming from the nightclub, no patrons milling around outside.  No noise, no people. 

“I’m going in,” she told them.

“Fuck that,” Jack retorted.

“Never thought I’d say this, but… I agree with Jack,” said Garrus.  “You going in alone?  Bad plan, Shepard.  Scratch that — _no_ plan.”

“There’s a back way in.”

Thena turned to find Aria T’Loak leaning against the far wall, a cigarette held lazily between her fingers.  She took a drag and walked closer, her heeled boots clicking and echoing in the empty space.  

“A loading bay for deliveries, mostly.  Should do the trick… if you’re actually planning on going in there and putting a bullet between that fucker’s eyes.”

“I guess he cleared out the place,” Garrus intoned, looking over again at the deathly silent club.

“Not like it took much convincing.  Some crazy-ass biotic comes in dragging some screaming brat in by the hair, people tend to sit up and take notice.”  She paused a beat.  “Right before getting the fuck out, of course, quick as you please.”

“I notice you’re still here,” Jack said, tossing Aria an insolent glare.  The two women sized each other up for several seconds before Aria took another drag off her cigarette and blew the smoke skyward.

“I’m waiting for my ride.”  She nodded again at the club.  “You’ll have to take the elevator down another level; you can get to the delivery bay around back from there.”  She nodded at the platform below them, then looked at Garrus, eyes glinting at the sight of the Widow on his back.  “Door’s locked, but you could probably hack it.  Take the back stairs to the left of the office.  You can get anywhere from there, but it’s a hell of a view from the top level.”

Garrus looked at Thena and shrugged.  “You know I love a view.”

Jack crossed her arms and cocked her head at Aria.  “What, no more helpful advice?” 

“You look like the sort of girl who can handle herself.”  Aria turned back to Shepard.  “And try not to break _too_ much.”

“I thought you hated this place.”

Shrugging, Aria dropped the cigarette and crushed out the smoldering remains beneath her heel.  “I do.  But you ruin this dump and I’ll be left running things out of Flux.”  A sudden wind from above gusted down at them, carrying with it the hum of a skycar engine.  A blood-red vehicle landed both silently and precisely, the canopy opening with a hydraulic hiss. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got to catch my ride.”  And with that, Aria sauntered to the car and slid inside.  It hovered briefly before pulling back up into the traffic high above them.

“That’s one creepy blue bitch,” muttered Jack.

“Can’t say I’m one of Aria’s biggest fans either, but I’ve got to admit,” Garrus said, pulling the Widow free and checking the clip before returning it to his back, “she gets things done.”

“Okay.  You two, get in through that back entrance.  Garrus, like Aria said, go high. Jack, stay in cover — don’t let him see you.”

“Come on, Shepard.  Like I fucking _would_.”  She turned on her heel and headed off for the elevator, leaving Garrus behind.

Once they were alone, he looked over his shoulder at the nightclub, then back at Thena.  “Only thing we’re missing is Kasumi and her cloak.  Wouldn’t mind the addition, frankly.”  

“Hey, I’ve got Garrus Vakarian watching my six.  I don’t need anything else.”

Garrus glanced at the club, his plates shifting as he scowled, mandibles pulled in tight.  “I don’t like this.”

Thena rocked back on her heels and looked hard at Purgatory’s closed doors.  “Oh, I’d bet a month’s pay it’s a trap.  Don’t bet on being able to contact me once you’re in position.  My guess is he’s got comms scrambled somehow, or blocked entirely.”

“And here I thought I was just being paranoid.”

“No,” she said, taking his hand in his and squeezing hard.  “This is his endgame, and we knew it was coming.  Hell, we’ve practically been playing into his hands the whole time.  And whether we like it or not, he’s chosen the venue.  One way or another, it ends here.”

“One way or another, huh?” he echoed, tipping his head to the side and squeezing her hand before releasing it.  “And by that I’m going to assume you mean either I get the kill shot, or you do.”

She shrugged, grinning crookedly.  “What can I say?  You know me best, Vakarian.”  

“Not yet, I don’t.  But I’m still looking forward to the process.”  

From the elevator — it’s doors still wide open — came Jack’s voice, strident and impatient, and carrying with it maybe the tiniest hint of malicious glee.  “Hurry the fuck up, Garrus. You guys can suck face or whatever the hell it is you do _after_ the job’s done!”

“Have I mentioned she’s charming?” he asked, dryly.  And on those words, Garrus turned and headed off in the same direction Jack had gone, leaving Thena alone to enter through the front doors.

One way or another, it ended here, today.

 

###

 

If Purgatory was silent on the outside, it was like a tomb within — well, a tomb aside from the static crackling in her ear.  As she’d expected, the comms were scrambled.  Not all the patrons had gotten out, Thena saw; there were crumpled bodies in the dim light — they could have been dead or simply unconscious.  The latter seemed likely as well, if Billy did in fact have Amanda with him.  He was a powerful biotic, that much she’d seen and experienced herself — but with such a crowded locale, she also knew there were limits to what even a powerful biotic could manage, even if his abilities were being augmented with red sand.

“I’m here,” she called out into the frantic flashes of light.  The music had been silenced, but the lights still spun and pulsed and glowed in dizzying patterns across the floor and walls.  “Billy?”  When there was still no answer, she pulled the Vindicator free and slowly explored the silent nightclub.  

She’d never truly appreciated how _large_ Purgatory was — below and above were levels she’d never even thought to visit.  Too much space and too many places for Billy to hide.  Normally she’d have followed the carnage, but there was too much of it to discern a path; mirrors had been shattered, light fixtures hung from wiring.  It _looked_ as if the person coming through wanted only to cause as much damage as possible, giving no thought to rhyme or reason, only destruction.  Glass and mirrors and lighting had been smashed; sparks issuing forth from the fixtures were caught and reflected in the shards like so many tiny stars.  Broken glass crunched under her boots as she walked, gun drawn, calling out Billy’s name, though that was more for Garrus and Jack’s benefit than because she expected any sort of answer from Billy.  She glanced up, and in the flickering flashes of light, she caught a glimpse of Garrus’ profile before he ducked into cover.  He was still watching her back, though — she could practically _feel_ his eyes on her, sweeping the area, keeping a sharp eye out.  

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she sang under her breath, holding her assault rifle close.  After one full circuit around the VIP level, Thena still found nothing of Billy or Amanda.  Garrus had the upper level, which left nowhere to go but… down.  

She was barely halfway down the stairs leading to the lower-level dance floors and bars, when a hydraulic hiss cut through the silence like a cobra’s warning.  Gun raised, Thena whirled on the stair in time to catch a blast of energy to her chest, knocking her off her feet, bypassing the stairs altogether and landing with a hard _whump_ flat on her back.  Her head ached with the thump, and though her armor left her protected and otherwise unhurt, the landing was more than enough to knock the wind from her lungs.  When she looked up, she saw Billy upon one of the moving platforms that typically showcased Purgatory’s dancers.  The platform wasn’t moving now — it was frozen in position midway down the pole on which it moved.  Next to him, on her knees, was the same girl from the docks — Amanda; his hand was twisted cruelly in her hair, and her face was swollen and mottled, and streaked with tears.

Scared, but _still alive._   That was something to hold on to.  

Hissing a swear, she got to her feet and began climbing the stairs two at a time, until Billy raised a hand and flung a stasis field around her, stopping her progress with all the effectiveness of a brick wall.

“I don’t think you need to get any closer than that, Thena,” called Billy.  “And I _really_ don’t think you’ll be needing that gun.  You won’t be needing any of it.  The stasis field eased up, and she no longer felt like a bug trapped in tree sap, but there was a pulse that knocked the assault rifle from her hands, sending it to land with a muted clatter, several meters away.

“You’ve got to know how this is going to end, Billy,” she called, keeping her hands out, palms up.

“Do I?  That depends on if you plan on dying horribly.  Because if you _do,_ then I sure as hell know how this is gonna end.  You know, I couldn’t decide where to lead you — it was nearly the vents, where I pushed Nevvar, but those are a little gummed up now, I hear.”  He sent her a cold smirk.  “The embassy?  That would’ve had a nice poetic ring to it, but too many exits and entrances.  Too many eyes, too many cams to scramble, too much security to deal with.  You know how it goes.”

“And no direct duct access,” she added.

“That too.  Weren’t you going to disarm?”

“You really need me to?  You’ve got the upper hand here, BIlly.  I’m just trying to negotiate Amanda’s release and safe return.”

“Oh, is _that_ why you’re here?”  He looked down at the teenager, twisting his hand in her hair until she jerked and yelped, the cry ending on a sob, the sound twisting painfully through Thena’s breast.  _No,_ she told herself.  _He’ll use her against you.  He already is.  He knows you and he knows how to make it hurt.  So don’t let it hurt — just don’t let_ him _know that._

“I’m not letting you hurt anybody else,” she told him, her voice steady.  “It’s me you’re angry at, so let her go.”

“You think it’s that easy?” Billy yelled over Amanda’s sobs, which had softened to a rhythmic hiccuping.

“I do think it’s that easy.  It’s what you want, isn’t it?”  She tried to take a step up the stairs, closer to the main landing, but Billy put his hand out, blue light just beginning to emanate from his palm, and she froze.  “It is,” she pressed, “isn’t it?  You want to carve _your_ name into _my_ skin.”

“You don’t actually expect me to fall for that, do you?” he sneered.  “What, you think because the vids call you a big fucking hero, you’re going to act like a _big fucking hero_?”

“No,” she answered, inclining her head and trying to pinpoint Garrus in her peripheral vision.  The dancers’ platforms weren’t quite as clear a shot from where she’d seen him last, and no doubt he was trying to find the best vantage point to line up his shot.  All Thena had to do was keep Billy talking until Garrus found the shot.  Easy.  “No, that’s not what I’m doing at all.  I’m trying to make things right.  It’s  me you want to hurt — not anyone else, right?”

“Oh, I’ve been having more fun than you’d think doing just that.  Maybe I’m not ready to stop.  Maybe after I kill you, I’ll just keep going.”

She bit back the acerbic retort and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly.  “Just let the girl go, Billy.  She isn’t part of this.”

“You sure that’s what you want, Thena?”

She opened her mouth to say _yes, let her go_ , but too late she realized — catching the way his muscles jerked a split second before he acted — that something was about to go horribly wrong.  The sound that came out of her mouth was a yell — _No!_ — as Billy’s grip went from the girl’s hair to her arm and he _flung_ her from the platform, the girl’s body flailing as she screamed before he caught her in a stasis field.

“Help me!” she screamed, the words broken with terrified sobs.  “Oh, my God, _help me!  Please!_ ”

“Must be nice to be that age,” Billy said, his tone conversational despite Amanda’s cries and pleas.  “When you think people actually _can_ help you.  Then you learn that everyone’s out for themselves.  That kinda sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Put her down, Billy.  _Gently._   Put her down.”

“You put down your weapons first,” he said.  “All of them.  Or I might decide to see how Mandy here’d like being squished.”  A ripple of power shuddered through the field and the teenager’s body gave a spasm as she fought against the compression.  “What do you think?  Which organ do you think I can crush first?  Or will we hear her bones crack before anything else?  Whaddaya think, Thena?”

“All right!” she yelled, pulling the Paladin from its holster first and tossing it aside.  “Look, Billy — just what you want.  _Look_.”  Next came her Graal and the Widow — Thena lamented not having the time and cover to get Billy’s head in the Widow’s sights, and she just hoped Garrus was finding somewhere he could line up the target just as well.  The last thing she removed were the fragmentation grenades, setting them on the ground in a neat row before stepping away.  “Now stop.  Stop, and let her down.  She hasn’t done anything to you, Billy.  She isn’t part of this, and she doesn’t _deserve_ it.”

The rippling field stilled, and though the teenager still looked terrified, she didn’t look as if she were being crushed to death, which was an improvement, however slim.  

“Who the hell says that’s got to matter?” he asked.  “So what if _she_ hasn’t?  You have.  And once I’m done with her, and then with you, _nobody’s_ gonna fuck with me ever again.”

From the corner of her eye, Thena caught sight of Garrus, still up on the highest level.  He was closer to Billy, but, as she’d suspected, it looked as if he was still having difficulty lining up a clean shot.  He was moving slowly and quietly, drawing ever nearer to the platforms.  Still no idea where Jack was, though she was certain the other woman was — like Garrus — trying to get herself into position.

“Now.  Come up the stairs,” Billy told her.  “Just leave your little armory behind you.”  Thena stepped carefully over the guns and grenades and, keeping her hands out, palms up, she slowly climbed the stairs, up to the landing.  Billy watched every move, his smile small and cruel as she cooperated.  “That’s better.  You know,” he went on in a conversational tone entirely at odds with the fact that he held a girl captive in a stasis field above both their heads, “I broke every piece of glass in this place.  Did you know that?”

“I noticed the mess, yeah,” Thena replied.

“Everything but the exterior windows.  Gotta keep up the ambiance, y’know?”  

She tipped her head back, looking up at the windows.  “…Right.”

“So what do you think, Thena?”

She swallowed, willing Garrus or Jack to be _in goddamn position already._ “About what?”

He pulled his hand back, and a new sort of energy began funneling into the stasis field, making it almost vibrate with kinetic energy, and he reminded Thena of nothing so strongly as her father drawing back before he threw a baseball.

_Throw.  He’s going to—_

“If I aim for that window right there,” he said, nodding at one of the nightclubs tinted skylights, “do you think the impact’ll kill her…”

Purgatory’s crypt-like silence was broken with the girl’s scream, the sound shooting down Thena’s spine and flooding her body with adrenaline as Billy flung her upward.  The sound, rather than being swallowed up by the enormous space, echoed throughout, ear-shatteringly loud.

“…or will it be the fall?”

“ _Jack!_ ” Thena yelled sharply, pivoting on the ball of her foot and leaping down to the lower landing, eyes trained on the girl’s form, hurtling toward the skylight.  There was nothing she could do — the girl was too high, and even if she fell, there was nothing— _nothing_ she could do.  Now, just like _every other damn time,_ she was left to _watch._  

Gritting her teeth, Thena looked over her shoulder at Billy, then reached down and swept up one of the discarded grenades— 

Suddenly, a field of biotic energy enveloped the girl, catching her safely and pulling her back down.

“Gotcha!” came Jack’s triumphant yell from one of the lowest levels of the club, followed by, “Now fuck off and suck on a concussive round, dickweed!”

Thena hadn’t yet pulled the pin on the grenade, and it was a damn good thing.  Billy’s outraged scream tore through his throat, a ragged, inhuman sound as he _pulled_ her across the club, then lifted and flung her hard against a wall, pinning her with a biotic field.  He bared his teeth at her; she saw spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth, his eyes wild with unchecked rage.

Just to Billy’s right, high above, Garrus stood, the Widow drawn.

 _Now, Garrus.  Now._ Now.

“So you _did_ bring two,” he said, breathing hard, flecks of spit flying as he growled the words through clenched teeth.  “I thought you _only brought one!_ ”  And with those words he flung a second field up, knocking Garrus back and sending the Widow’s shot wildly awry.  The round hit a glowing perfume advertisement that featured a young asari’s face — or had, until it shattered in an explosion of glass and crackling sparks that glowed and flared as they bounced off every surface.  In the hectic light, Jack appeared on the landing Thena had been standing on just seconds before.  Her features twisted in fury as she lifted both hands, biotic light glowing and dancing, as if a reflection of her anger.

“Well come on, asshole,” she said, her words edged in a snarl.  “Pull your dick out.  Let’s measure.”  Red lips curled in a dark grin.  “Pretty sure I’ll win.”

Billy tipped his head, regarding Jack with predatory curiosity.  “You think so?” he asked lightly, his tone at odds with the cold hate glittering in his eyes and the furious flush upon his face.   After a moment the field shifted and rippled again, and soon it began pressing in on Thena.  The armor she wore was sturdier against biotic attacks, but still she felt the pressure crushing at her throat.  

“Seriously?” Jack asked, crossing her arms and shifting her weight until one hip jutted out.  “You think that shit’s gonna scare me off?”

“So you’d just stand there and watch the _famous,_ the _heroic_ , the _indomitable_ Commander Shepard—”

“What, _die_?  Is that what you were thinking?” Jack asked.  “You were thinking, _Oh, poor me, this bitch got famous and I’m still a murderous fuckhead.  I know, I’ll make her look bad and then I’ll kill her and everyone’ll fuckin’ love me_ — is that it?  Because if that’s what you were thinking, you’re even fucking dumber than I thought.  So, what, you thought you’d leave a few dead bodies around, play Mister Big-Bad-Biotic and she’d be pissing herself in her hardsuit or something?  Did you even _watch_ the vids?  A fucking _thresher-maw,_ you stupid _prick._   You wanna talk about something that’ll make you piss yourself?  And she’s faced ‘em down.  Not once.  Not even twice.  _Three times_ , you ignorant piece of shit.  You _really_ think she’s going to be afraid of some pathetic fucking waste like you?”

“It’s not about _fear,”_ Billy explained with a sneer _.  “_ It’s about _pain._ ”  As he spoke, the compression field around Thena released, still holding her in place, but not _crushing_ her like it had.  “And I know _just_ how to hurt her.”

Up on the highest landing, Garrus stood stock-still, pushing against the stasis field.  Even from such a distance, she saw the way the Widow trembled as he tried to lift it up just a little higher.  But the field around him slowly began to change, and when Thena looked sharply back at Billy, she saw familiar threads of light threading through and around the field until they danced around Garrus.  His mandibles were pulled in tightly against his face, his eyes were closed; he was in pain — that much was evident.

_Reave._

She went cold suddenly, watching — she had no choice _but_ to watch.  Thena recalled all too clearly how how excruciating the pain had been, how the attack had felt as if it were hollowing her out, breaking her from the inside out.

_One way or another, you son of a bitch, this ends here and it ends now._

“Yeah,” Jack said. “And some of us just stand up a little straighter when it hurts.”  

What happened next came all too quickly, and all at once.

Jack, as if to punctuate her statement, drew both hands back and flung them forward, sending a shockwave of energy hurtling at Billy.  The bolt of blue light hit him solidly in the chest, flinging him back and sending a crack down the center of the platform.  It didn’t break, but the force had been enough to render it lopsided.  In that instant, his concentration was broken so completely that the biotic energy coming from his hands flickered and sputtered before going out entirely.  Thena dropped lightly to her feet, but when she looked up, eyes scanning the uppermost level, she didn’t see Garrus.  Breathing a swear, she popped the pin on the grenade she still held and flung it at Billy even as she turned and sprinted back toward Jack, who held Thena’s Paladin in one hand and her Graal in the other, tossing the latter at Thena, who caught the weapon’s solid weight in her arms.

The grenade blew, the explosion sending a rush of hot air and flame upward as Billy’s body was thrown forward with the blast.  He careened into several tables and chairs, sending them tumbling before he landed on the floor in a heap.

“Hey, Garrus?” Thena called, hefting the Graal and training it on Billy.  “You okay up there?”  

No answer came from above.  She tried to remember how long Billy had used reave on her, how long it had taken to do the damage he’d done, but time had meant little to her at the time.  She could have been caught in the field for minutes, hours, or days.  She swore silently.

The shotgun primed and ready, Thena motioned for Jack to follow her as she slowly approached Billy, who remained deathly still on the floor.  She considered those words, _deathly still_ , and found herself hoping they were accurate.  With the toe of her boot, she nudged at Billy’s shoulder, rolling him over.

She realized too late he wasn’t dead; he’d been _waiting_.  

The blast was blinding and, ironically, Thena thought, carried with it all the force of a grenade.  They were both _shoved_ back — the shotgun went off — and Thena slammed solidly into the bar with a resounding _crack_ — before tumbling to the floor.  Jack had been thrown into the pit seating nearby, sliding across the table before landing hard on the floor.    

Billy was standing now, biotic energy — _energy he stole feeding off Garrus,_ she reminded herself — flowing from his hands.  His thigh was bloody with the Graal’s errant shot, and she hoped it hurt like a bitch.  He was breathing hard, his face twisted into a snarl as he strode closer.  She lifted the Graal, finger poised on the trigger.

“You are _not_ taking this from me.  I won’t _let_ you. I won’t let—”

Before she could aim, before she could pull the trigger at all, Billy’s words stopped and his body jerked as his head exploded into a red mist of blood, bone and grey matter.  He was talking and then he wasn’t.  His head was there, and then it wasn’t.  The fine spray of it went everywhere, landing on upended tables and broken chairs.  His body twitched and jerked for a second or two before collapsing to its knees, and then falling to the ground.

“Maybe she isn’t,” Garrus drawled from above, subharmonics doing nothing whatsoever to conceal his exhaustion or pain.  “But I sure as hell am.”

 


	11. Epilogue

“Can I assume you’ve got an update for me, Commander?”  Hackett’s holographic outline sharpened and blurred, then sharpened again as his features came into focus on the vidcomm.  Even if the admiral’s outline jumped and frazzled with interference, his expression was all too shrewd, all too knowing as he regarded her across the comm link.  That came across clearly enough.

“Yes, sir,” Thena replied, standing up straight, hands linked loosely behind her back.  “There were more casualties since you and I last spoke, sir, but Jeremy Delaporte, also known as ‘Billy,’ is not longer a threat.  C-Sec underwent heavy losses, but Commander Bailey assures me those losses would have been far greater had we not eliminated the threat.  We managed to prevent him from claiming  a final victim.  Amanda Lafayette was… shaken, but otherwise unharmed.”

“Still no word about her parents, I assume.”

“No, sir,” she answered, feeling a pang as she shook her head.  “But several C-Sec officers have taken an interest in the welfare of underaged refugees who… happen to be without parents or guardians.  She’ll be all right.”

“And your team?”

“Jack has already rejoined her students in the field.  Garrus Vakarian is recovering from injuries incurred during the final standoff, but I’m given to understand his recovery will be both swift and complete.”  He was already feeling better, if the degree to which he was driving Chakwas to distraction was any indication.  

Hackett eyed her for a moment, as if awaiting something more.  Finally, apparently satisfied, he nodded.  “Good to hear.  What’s your current course?”

“En route to the Perseus Veil, sir.” And Thena knew, _knew,_ because nothing was ever easy, that convincing the quarians to join the war against the Reapers would take… well, more than just an inspired speech at a trial, that was for sure.  She had no idea what was coming, but that was all right.  In a lot of ways, _this_ kind of uncertainty was almost easier to prepare against than what they’d undergone the last four days.

“Keep me posted, Commander.  We’re going to need the quarian fleet’s support if we want to make any headway in this war.  Hackett out.”  With those words, the admiral’s image fizzled and faded into nothing.  Thena exhaled, feeling no small amount of tension flow out of her body as she did.

“‘Recovering’?” Garrus drawled from the doorway where he leaned, arms crossed.  He wasn’t in his armor, making him look strangely out of place —  likely he’d come here straight from medbay.  “I’ll have you know I’m fit for whatever you throw at me, Shepard.”

“Yeah?” she asked, shifting her weight and folding her arms.  “And what would Doctor Chakwas say if I asked her about that?”

“Hey, she cleared me to leave medbay,” he said with a shrug.  “You think I’d be here without her say-so?”

“You?  Break rules? Can’t imagine such a thing.”

Garrus gave a soft snort.  “Normally I’d say you’re right.  But even I wouldn’t cross Chakwas.”

“Smart man,” she said, coming out of the vidcomm room.  Garrus moved out of the way just enough that Thena barely brushed against him as she walked past.  “So you’re not suicidal.  Good trait to have.”

Together they walked from the war room, through the scanners, on their way to the elevator.  

“So,” Garrus said, and then he cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders as the doors opened.  “Where you headed?”

She waited for the doors to close again before she answered, “I was thinking about going down to talk to my chief medical officer about the crew member she just cleared for duty.  Figured I’d ask her just what kind of activities he’s cleared for.”  Tilting her head at him, Thena shot Garrus a grin.  “Unless he wants to tell me himself?”

His mandibles flared — one a bit wider than the other, which leant a definite smirking quality to the expression — as he said, “Pretty sure the doc knows me well enough not to let me out of her sight unless she thinks I can handle whatever, ah, trouble I get into.”

“Trouble, huh?” she said, reaching for the keypad.  But Garrus was quicker than she was and punched the pad first.  “And where’re you headed?”

Garrus stepped closer, dipping his head until his cheek brushed hers.  “Girlfriend’s quarters,” he rumbled into her ear, and her breath caught as the sound went from her ear, straight down her spine, making heat pool suddenly in her belly.  “Figured I’d see just how much trouble I could handle.”

She looked up to find him watching her steadily, and she remembered suddenly, and with skin-prickling clarity, how drained, how _wrong_ he looked when she and Jack had raced to the uppermost level and found him crumpled on the floor, one hand still gripping the Widow, his plates pale and dull.  And _that_ had reminded her all too clearly of Omega, a gunship, and Garrus bleeding out on a dirty floor.

But then his hand was at her chin, then slid up to her cheek; it was enough to pull her back, to make her see _him_ again.  “Hey.”

“Sorry.  It just…  I’m okay.”

The doors opened, but they both ignored it for the moment.  “You zoned for a second there,” Garrus murmured, running one talon softly across her cheek.

All she could do was shrug.  “Yeah.  I know.  Memories.”  She reached up, running her fingertips back along Garrus’ fringe, letting the warmth and texture push those memories back, urging other ones, _better_ ones forward.

“Bad ones?” he asked, tilting his head into her hand.  He sounded as if he already knew the answer to that.  He probably did.

With a humorless chuckle, she nodded.  “Hell, Garrus, I’ve got enough material to make bad memories that’d last several lifetimes.”

Nodding at the open doors, he put a hand against the small of her back and gave a gentle push into the hall, “So maybe it’s time we try to make some _good_ ones.”

She wanted to joke, to say something to defuse the moment before it sank into her skin, before it _meant_ something.  But Thena knew it was far too late for that; this moment, and all of the others, had already sunk in, already meant something.  She thought back — had it only been four days ago they’d shot bottles of the top of the Citadel?  It felt like months now.  Funny how she remembered thinking there was no one who knew her better than Garrus, no one she’d let in more than Garrus.  She’d thought it true at the time, but it hadn’t been true _enough._   He was past every one of her defenses, now — in where it mattered, in deeper than he’d ever been.  Before, Thena had thought Garrus knew her; she’d thought he couldn’t know her any better than he already did.  But she’d been wrong — completely beyond ass-backwards _wrong._  

Garrus knew her now.  He knew the things she’d never wanted him to know, the things she’d never wanted to tell him.  Parts of herself _she’d_ wanted to forget.

“Garrus…”

“Open the door, Shepard.”

“I don’t know if Chakwas cleared you for _this_ kind of activity,” she joked, but opened the door all the same.  The only illumination came from the aquarium, bathing the room in a wavering bluish light.  Shadows played across the bed and floor as fish swam from one end to the other.  As they walked in, Thena noticed the addition of an ice bucket on one of the low tables.  The slender neck of a wine bottle pushed out from the mound of ice cubes.

Garrus followed her gaze and coughed.  “I, ah, might’ve stopped up here first.”

She looked over to him, saying, “You’re sure you’re—”

Holding up one hand to stop her, Garrus cut her off, saying, “Thena, so help me, if you ask me one more time if I got Chakwas’ clearance—”

“Right,” she replied with a grimace.  “Sorry.”

He walked to the bucket and pulled the bottle free.  “Not that the overprotective girlfriend thing isn’t charming in its own way…”

“Overprotective?” Thena snorted as Garrus filled two glasses, handing her one.  “I just don’t want my sniper screwing up his game because he got drunk after having his nervous system shot to hell.”

“First of all, I _never_ screw up my game.  And second of all, this is the good stuff, Shepard.  You don’t get _drunk_ on the good stuff.”

Thena shot him a skeptical look, but brought the glass to her lips and drank.  The wine was deep, deep red — the liquid looked almost black in the dim room — and smoky and sweet by turns, warming a path down her throat.  It didn’t have the tinny aftertaste most dual-chiral wines had, and Thena took a second drink, savoring the taste even more this time around.  “Nice,” she finally said.

“Better than the crap I brought up the first time, I know.”

She shrugged.  “We were so nervous I’m not sure either of us actually tasted it.”

“Correction.  _I_ was nervous.  You were… you.”

She laughed at that and shook her head, turning and walking toward the fishtank; the sunfish glided, the jellyfish bobbed, and the eels cut and raced through the water. She let her eyes track the movements of the different fish for a moment before she turned and leaned against the glass, taking another sip of wine.  “Oh, I was nervous all right, Vakarian.”

“You hid it well, _smooth-talker,_ ” he teased, gesturing at her with his glass.

“Yeah, well,” she said, rolling one shoulder in a shrug, “that’s what I do.  Push it down, hide it, shove it aside to deal with later.  That night, I thought… I don’t know.”  But that wasn’t entirely true, and she knew it.  Thena drank again, a deep, long swallow that warmed its way again down to her belly.  She took a breath and started again. “I thought I couldn’t believe of all the beings in the galaxy, I was falling for _you._   I thought maybe it was crazy of me, and if it was I didn’t care.”

“Well.  We’re _both_ a little crazy, Shepard.  Don’t think we’d be where we are now if we weren’t.  But,” he said, extending a long talon and pointing it at her, “we’re the _right kind_ of crazy.”

She considered that a moment, tilting her glass this way and that, watching the liquid play against the sides of the glass, then she lifted it with a crooked smile.  “Here’s to the right kind of crazy.  May we never dip over into the wrong kind.”

“I’ll drink to that.”  Garrus raised his glass with a nod, but didn’t drink.  Instead, he waited until Thena had — her glass was nearly empty now, and his still half-full — to say, “You’re not going to, you know.  Dip over.  You’re _you_ , Shepard.  Always have been, from the second I met you.”

The wine felt as if it stuttered in her throat, but Thena swallowed it down with some effort.  “Garrus—”

“What,” he interrupted, “you think I can’t tell what’s eating away at you?  Come on, give me a little credit.”

She drained the glass in a swallow.  “I knew him.  I could’ve… _something._   I could’ve _done_ something.”

“Like what?  What in the hell were you supposed to do?  You were a damn _kid._ The fact you managed to run herd on any of those kids, keep _any_ of them from going bad — it might not seem like a lot to you, but I bet, wherever they are now, they’d say differently.  I don’t care what kind of fancy cybernetics you’ve got, you aren’t omniscient now and you sure as hell weren’t then.  You can’t blame yourself for whatever happened after you left.  And I know damn well that’s what you’re doing.”

Thena crossed the room to refill her glass, opening her mouth to argue, but Garrus cut her off.  Bastard.  Granted, he was a bastard that was _right,_ but that only made him more of a bastard in her book just then.

“Thena.  Listen.  It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter what Billy did or said or thought.  You didn’t abandon those kids.  If anything, he screwed them over.  He wanted to be the big damn hero by making someone else look bad, and his head was too far up his own ass for him to know that’s not how it works.  You’re still Commander Shepard, first human Spectre, hero of the Citadel, the woman who came back from the damn _dead_ to blow the Collectors into hell.  _You_ faced the Alliance after Hackett sent you to Aratoht on a mission that had gone sideways before you even set foot on the planet — _you_ faced the music.  Not Hackett, not anyone else.  _You._   It doesn’t matter where you came from, it matters that you got here.  It matters what you _did._ And what you’re going to do.”

She stared at him for a second, then exhaled a soft breath of laughter as she shook her head.  “You sound like your dad.”

“Spirits, don’t ever tell _him_ that.”  Garrus went still — it lasted little more than a fraction of a second, barely a hiccup in his movements, but it was there, and Thena saw it.  He drained the wine from his glass and set it down again.  “But, ah, speaking of which.  Since you brought him up.  My dad.  Speaking of him.  Assuming we… we get out of this — and _I am_ assuming that — I…  Shepard, we get out of this, I… want to take you to meet my, uh.  My father.  Sister too.”

This conversation was going to require a lot more wine.  “I’ve met your father, Garrus,” she said, taking what felt like a fortifying swig from her wineglass.  This time the liquid didn’t go down half as smoothly when she swallowed.  “It didn’t go well.”

“You were, what, sixteen?  Seventeen?  Hell, he wasn’t too fond of me at that age, either.”  He let out a long, deep breath and shook his head.  “I think you’d surprise him, Shepard.  And I… really want to be there to see it.  My dad doesn’t exactly _surprise_ easily.”

“You really want me to meet your father?  _Your_ father?”

“And Solana, my sister  But… yeah.  I do.”

“You want me to meet your _family,_ ” she said, still trying to wrap her head around the words.  “Me.  _Your family._ ”

“Well, no,” Garrus said, pushing to his feet and joining her by the fishtank.  She pressed her back against the cool glass as she looked up at him, suddenly _there_ and close and warm, and more than enough to make every other concern fighting for dominance in Thena’s head to quiet down to a soft, distant buzz.  His hands were traveling up her arms and shoulders, the blunted ends of his claws rasping gently against her neck and along her jaw.  “That’s not it at all,” he murmured, and close as he was, she could _feel_ the depth of his subharmonics, the way the sound made his chest vibrate, the way it resonated _through_ her.  For a moment she thought she could almost make out a thread of… of _something_ in the tones.  Something _more._  

She swallowed hard, tipping her head back and meeting his gaze unwaveringly.  “Then what _is_ it?”

That waver, she realized suddenly, _powerfully,_ that note of something she nearly heard was _pride._ Pride and loyalty and love, all wound together into a thread of sound woven throughout Garrus’ reply.  

“I want _them_ to meet _you.”_

 

 

 


End file.
